Bombs and Bullets
by Paradigm of Writing
Summary: A president sitting on a throne that is not hers. An avox with a voice for revolution that has been heard. Victors freed from jail cells, fighting for a freedom they can see. A Panem resting on collapse, as twenty-four tributes are lost in a war-zone, a burning sky decorated in sulfur when the bombs and bullets detonate above. The 101st Hunger Games have come undone. {SYOT CLOSED}
1. The Scorned (Prologue I)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with... well, you guessed it! This is the first chapter to my SYOT sequel, ****_Bombs and Bullets, _****which follows directly after Sheep Led to Slaughter, which is my very first successfully finished SYOT. Although reading Sheep Led to Slaughter is not necessary in its full entirety - given that the story is fifty chapters and over three hundred thousand words long - I can understand some who may be jumping in blind. This story, ladies and gentlemen, will be a bit different than most traditional SYOTS, that I can assure you, but I will keep all of that entirely a secret. There will be the rules for submission at the bottom, and I am not sure exactly how many chapters I am planning on making my epilogue before I jump to the tributes, but I might follow the same pattern as I did for Sheep Led to Slaughter since ****_it worked. _****Hope you all enjoy Chapter #1: The Scorned.**

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_And so I sayeth, the Lord, what do you wrought out of me for? How have I mistreated my gift of eternity everlasting?_

**_Hector Merviere: Victor of the 77th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

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Nails that dig into stone are broken and bloodied. Burns that scrape alongside the cuticles, until there is nothing but fire sinking into his skin. A throat parched and devoid of liquidous life, where sores from and become coarse, bump as if sandpaper is swallowed instead of food. Feet that ache and bleed from burst blisters cratering the soles of shoeless skin. Eyes that wince when the halcyon lights scorch and blaze with the ferocity of a supernova, as chains rattle, holding up arms which are thin and devoid of life. The swinging lamp above, on a chain made of silicon which smells of human flesh, is not the sun, as these eyes have not seen the sun in seven days. A cinderblock prison, smelling of fecal matter in one corner, and urine in the other. He has not soiled his clothes, luckily, but he'd be blind to call them in _pristine _condition.

Hector Merviere, the victor of the 77th Hunger Games, lifts his head up, at the sound of creaking doors, the sound of booted footsteps on tile. Tile that wades into his cell, underneath the cinderblock door, where ants scurry around, picking up the scraps of food that sloshes out of the ceramic bowl placed in front of him. He does not go to lick off of the floor, as there are worse ways than torture to die in the Capitol, he knows, but a part of him stings with pride, the idea of eating off of the floor like a dog. He didn't win the Hunger Games, surviving into adulthood, to get cholera off of a jail cell floor.

There are minute sounds coming from the walls, walls that he has clawed at well into the night, as the light above never turns off, he never knows what time of day it is. It might be seven in the morning, when poor Elias and Arianne - his brother's kids flash before his eyes, apparently in the custody of the president, but that only makes him claw harder at the walls - are getting ready, eating at some high table, or eleven at night when the approaching shadows elongate alongside the sides of buildings, a ghoulish moon rising in the sky. He knows it has been a week, as every day, some official - he believes it to be the Head Peacekeeper, a scum sucking pig by the name of Lazarus who might be sleeping with the president too, for all he knows - comes in, toning on what day it is, the number of lashes, and oh much more.

Much more that Hector whines, trying to flatten himself against the wall when the door to his cell, a door with no window, just a solid gray space where he feels nothing but the chill of the air conditioning, wrenches open, blinding him further in a hot brightness. He squeals, covering his eyes from the glory, and then it is over, the door slammed shut, and standing in front of him, dressed up in their beetle-esque armor, is a Peacekeeper, uniform blizzard white, a helmet with a black visor the color of an abyss staring back at him, where he sees his hair that is ragged and grows to the sides of his face, a bush built by a beaver. Never the Peacekeeper's eyes, which must be cold and unflinching, terrifying in their power.

"Day Eight, victor," says the Peacekeeper gruffly. Not _Hector, _not _Mr. Merviere, _but a title, as if him being victor has saved from any such treatment as this. "Do you know of your transgressions? Why you are here?" It is the same two questions that the individual asks, and as far as Hector is able to believe, it is the same person for their inflection is alike, their tone is the same, and Peacekeepers are not cloned individuals, that he knows of since he has seen many with their helmets off, acting as 'normal' human beings.

"_Normal human beings don't enjoy the punishment of others..._" he thinks to himself, but the voice he hears in his head is not of his own volition. It is a darker one, imbued with sadness, a sadness that runs off as water does in a cave, colliding with the stone surface below, dissipating as an echo crashes into a mountainside. However, then aloud, as he gives the same reply every single time, a broken record on repeat, while he shakes his head vigorously, "No! I haven't done anything..."

The Peacekeeper, which sounds like Lazarus Pietro - _Lazarus rose from the dead through Jesus Christ of Nazareth, _as Hector has heard the story, resurrected in the form of this Lucifer cloaked in white, the paleness of Death - so Hector will call Lazarus, swipes something out of his pocket, and Hector whines again, pressing his face against the stone, to where a blemish appears on his left cheek. Black strands of tweed and rope dangle onto the floor, lightly swiping as if a gentleman had been wearing long coattails. Lazarus swings in an arc with the object in his hand, the air crackling as the whip slices through the air. Hector screams as several strands collide, one lashing directly across the face.

He collapses onto the floor from the blunt force of the strike, and he has been injured enough times in his life to know that the pain blooming like a flower against his cheek is blood, evident by the scarlet droplets hitting the stone. Lazarus raises the whip again for another strike, his hand firmly gripped around the base as if he is holding onto a ladder rung. Hector covers his face with his hands, as his mind screams at him that resistance is futile, the voice greyed and weathered, when-

"No need for that anymore, Head Peacekeeper. He is damaged enough," a feminine voice rises behind the devil.

Hector opens his eyes, having squeezed them shut, but relief does not flood his veins. That voice is not one to celebrate. "It is only one lash, Madam President. It is not enough. He must be punished, and-"

"He will be," comes the voice again, the voice of a _Madam President, _"But not today. Today is important, after all. I require him to look somewhat presentable."

"But-" Lazarus starts to argue.

"This is not up for discussion, Mr. Pietro," the woman's voice is stern and sharp, and Hector can feel the gaze Lazarus is given pierce through him as well. "Unless you wish to take his place, which I can arrange as well."

Lazarus sighs, running a hand down the whip, white leather running away in vermillion, and the victor shudders over in his corner. That is an ounce of _him _splattered onto the canvas, something he will never be able to fully comprehend. The Head Peacekeeper shrugs out of the room, the good bitch he is, as Hector has always called him. Standing in his place, someone he is unsure whether or not to place gratitude in. Before him, dressed in shades of the night sky, is Madam President Bonnie Rodney. The president of Panem, mother to one, consumer of evil, and the murderer of his brother.

Her blonde hair is curly for the occasion, and from the sound of her voice, Hector already knows why.

There had been a time, and Hector finds this unbelievable to himself now, that he found her attractive. It would've been forever ago, twenty years ago by this point, when he is a fresh victor and he lays eyes on her for the first time. He does not remember if she had been there for his coronation, given one of those metallic crowns he has lost long ago, but it is a few years later, when he's invited to the Capitol for another victory tour party. There's seeing her on a screen, and there's seeing her in person, in the flesh, hearing her laugh vibrate against the walls. She is beautiful up close, but now, as he looks at her, the beauty has vanished. It disappears behind a veil of black, thorns that situate itself into its own crown on her forehead, eyes of a viper dancing over his exposed flesh.

How foolish he used to be.

She takes a step towards him, diamond eyes appraising over him like a cat surveying a high ledge. Bonnie crouches down in front of Hector, who to his credit, does not flinch away. "Lazarus seemed to get you pretty badly."

"You don't care," Hector wants to spit in her face, but all that is there for him is the ability to shake. "You'll simply call him back in to beat me to death."

Bonnie raises an eyebrow, frowning, and then stands right back up. Her face is illuminated by the swinging lamp, brow casted in shadow, the frown turning into a single line. She crosses her hands together, resting them in front of her chest, as if that is supposed to represent something comforting. "It is Reaping Day, Hector," she has the decency to use his name, he supposes. "I cannot have a victor of mine looking worse for wear."

"I want to see Hale," he says, but it comes out as a broken whisper, a whine with zero power. Hale Cornerstone, from District 2, a victor of the Hunger Games, the 87th year, somewhere in this prison too, in her own cell, tortured, beaten... he doesn't know, but he's certain. Day after day Bonnie has come to see him, after Lazarus raises the whip and threatens with the pistol, but she usually does not arrive this early into the flogging, where instead she sits on the other side of the wall, eyes closed, listening. He knows, as she's told him. Time and time he asks to see his sister-in-law, someone he hasn't spoken to or seen in nearly nine months.

She presses her lips together wryly. "I can't do that. I cannot have traitors see one another to plot more treason."

"Treason?" Hector yells indignantly at her, trying to leap to his feet, before falling back down again, as he's chained to the floor with iron anklets that cut off circulation; he lost the primary feeling in his feet days ago. "None of us committed treason!"

Bonnie turns her head to the side, eyes glowing. The indignation dies in his throat, in case Lazarus comes marching back in. "Yes, treason, Hector," she says, rather simplistically, as if she had been reciting the wares of her mansion. "Your brother and your sister-in-law murdered my husband and our Head Gamemaker. Then, as it turned out to be, got married without my husband's consent, had children, and when this had been discovered, after they murdered him, fled!"

"You murdered Calhoun! You murdered Lewlyn! You! All you!" Hector screams.

Bonnie rings her hands together, fingers overlapping one another. "You're saying things you don't understand. Your time in here is driving you insane, Mr. Merviere."

"I'm telling the truth!" he howls at her, trying to lash forward, but he gets a few inches towards Bonnie, but he's held back by the shackles, the cry in his throat lodging against his Adam's apple.

She closes her eyes, and a frown spreads across her face. Her shoulders deflate, the fight seeping out of her, and she crouches down next to Hector again, whose eyes burn with a blackness for retribution. Bonnie presses a hand against the side of his face, he shivering away from the touch, but she keeps him placated in the center with her other hand. "Lies come easily to you, I know. You're in disbelief, and I have to ensure, for Panem's safety, that you have not been conspiring like Arizona and Hale have done to destroy this great nation."

"They didn't do anything wrong! They didn't do _anything,_" he protests. "I never certainly did! I've said it over and over again! I'll say it till I lose my voice!"

Bonnie bows her head for a second, curving her fingers in so her nails dig into Hector's face. One comes in contact with the lash from the whip, and he hisses, but he keeps his eyes directly at her. A rule she does not deserve, a presidency not hers to take... a sibling she's killed, a family she has ruined. "You have to convince me, Hector. You must convince me that you deserve forgiveness."

She removes her hands from his face, turning on her heel and exiting out of the cell. Hector is at a loss for words, momentarily, as the Head Peacekeeper steps back into the view of the open door, hand on the cinderblock. He shouts, pleading for mercy, for forgiveness, tears streaming down his cheeks, but Bonnie gives an order, as he can partially hear her voice, stern and stout. His cries are drowned out when the door slams shut, and the booted feet can be heard walking away from the cell door, Hector writhing in his restraints.

Nothing will soothe him, as he bleeds.

Nothing will soothe him, as he screams.

His eighth day of imprisonment continues, and president Bonnie Rodney has the 101st Hunger Games to attend to.

She will let the bombs and bullets fly away.

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_**Tribute Submission Form**_

**Name:**

**District with two backups:**

**Age:**

**Gender:**

**Appearance:**

**Personality (be descriptive please: likes, dislikes, sexuality preference if any, traits, etc...)**

**Backstory (can include friends and family as well)**

**Weaknesses (minimum of three, be specific)**

**Strengths (minimum of three, be specific)**

**Weapon(s) of choice**

**Reaping reaction if reaped:**

**Would this tribute volunteer? Why or why not?**

**Token**

**Private Gamemaker Session?:**

**Preferred Range of Score: (1-4, 5-8, 9-12)**

**Any Allies or Alliances?**

**Preferable Placement: (Bloodbath [24th-18th], Early Game [13th-17th], Mid Game [7th-12th], Finale [1st/Victor-6th]**

**Cause of Death?**

**If your tribute were to die somehow outside of the arena, how would they die?**

**Could your character survive a war-zone? Why or why not?**

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**There we have it folks, the very first chapter of my new SYOT, Chapter #1: The Forgiveness, for Bombs and Bullets, the Sheep Led to Slaughter sequel. Above is the criteria for your tribute, submissions can only be given to me through PM, I will not accept guest submissions through reviews or submissions through reviews as it makes organization extremely cluttered. Submissions are open starting today, and I have yet to decide a day when I shall end them. If your tribute has currently been submitted to and is in another on-going SYOT, I will not accept them. If they are from a discontinued story, feel free. I will have statistics of submissions up on my profile soon, as well as the submission criteria. Please, a max of two submissions unless I ask otherwise.**

**Also, included, there will be a few new characters in the Capitol storyline, one of which an OC for Head Gamemaker that I have designed, but I have not thought of a first or last name for this character. Our new Head Gamemaker will be female as well, like Lewlyn Davis from Sheep Led to Slaughter, and if you wish to submit a name for this new character, please, be my guest. Tribute submission will not be first come, first serve; I will simply choose the best of the best provided.**

**Please do review and let me know what you think, and please do submit! I love you all so much! That was Chapter #1: The Scorned, and I will see you all soon for Chapter #2: The Phoenix. Have an amazing day! Love you all! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	2. The Phoenix (Prologue II)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #2: The Phoenix. Last chapter, #1: The Forgiveness, was the very first, starting us on the morning of the Reaping - like Slaughter did - with Hector Merviere, a former victor, in prison, and our new president Bonnie Rodney gladly gloating... I do currently have a lot of submissions - about 21 or so - but there are a lot of spots that have 0 tributes even submitted to. I won't be making any decisions on who I am using until somewhere around the end of September, so please, get those tributes in, it'd mean the world! I hope you do enjoy Chapter #2: The Phoenix, where two other returning Capitol characters make it back to the fold.**

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_~ And so sayeth the Lord, resurrect me like a phoenix from the ashes, where I shall smote and destroy my enemy on the mountaintop._

**_Rennie Davis: The Phoenix P.O.V_**

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This is dangerous. He knows it is. Half of him is worried, the way his feet drag on the concrete, soles of shoes scuffing against upturned stones. How his head hangs down, strands of hair getting into his eyes, ticking the corneas and outer edges, but he does not dare look up. If someone were to view him walking, they would have thought of him to be depressed, as to how he hangs his head and keeps his eyes down on his shoes, scuffing them on the concrete. It is the blazing August heat, yet he is wearing a long coat, hat dragged down over to the edges of his ears, making hair puff out like the brush on the savannas. His throat is dry, not having had anything to drink, fear for of lifting his head, and all he needs is someone to recognize him, someone to recognize him and then everything goes to hell.

Rennie Davis, an ex-Avox, still with the loss of his tongue, pauses for a second, closing his eyes. He does not want to lift his head up for more than a few seconds, as he can tell by the particular way the fountain near him drips and sounds - the same fountain Pollux chokes the life out of him at, he remembers fondly, almost putting a faint smile to his lips - that he is in the heart of downtown. He is surrounded by people, the way there are too many pairs of dress shoes and heels clacking against the stone as they walk, their voices riddling together in waves, toppling one another, battling for dominance. Luckily, no one has come over to ask if he is alright, as Rennie has no idea what it is he'll even do to try and counteract that, there is no Emergency Plan B in the back of his mind while he does this. He knows that if he says nothing whilst staring at them in the face blankly, dots will connect. He can actually hear an announcer talking aloud, on some billboard, on some screen where surely his face is plastered all around it, echoing along the vicinity.

"_Avox Rennie Davis is still wanted on charges of treason, heresy, and forgery. If you or anyone knows anything, you are begged to speak to the nearest Peacekeeper or President Rodney herself..._" the announcer drones on.

"_Herself..._" Rennie runs the word over in his head. "_Not himself..._" Calhoun Rodney is dead, tragically murdered by victors Hale Cornerstone of District 2 and Arizona Merviere of District 10, while Arizona's brother Hector is locked up on complicit charges associating himself with knowledge of the crime. He knows, Rennie knows, the way he hears Lewlyn being found dead in a bathtub, throat slit in a ruby red cherry smile from ear to ear, there is no way the two most powerful people in Panem end up dead within an hour of each other, when the new _Madam _rises to her seat, a throne that isn't hers to be a coincidence. Or done by two has been victors a decade and a half ago.

"_And I am a phoenix with a voice, a message no one will ever hear..._" he tells himself, frowning slightly. What could he do? An avox against a woman who has evil run through her veins, the way evil drags all suspecting victims down into a secret layer of Hell they can't see.

The stonework beneath his feet change colors, a calcite gray to a more brick style, and he knows he is going in the right direction. This can all go against his plan, but Rennie has to hold out on a hope. It is what Lewlyn would have said to him, would have told him in a moment of doubt, with hands pressed against the side of his face, a kiss to the forehead, as her hands hold his tongue between them, mashing the organ up. He has let a lot of baggage go when it comes to her, as he lies awake on a cot in a different part of the city. How he is -_ was,_ he sharply corrects himself, _was - _in love with his sister, the same woman as Head Gamemaker who fakes a forged signature on a document when he cannot even write, and then is the very one to hold the tongs in place as the blade goes _snicker-snack, snicker-snack _across flesh, thrown into a brazier and burned, when his cries leave blood bubbles frothing at the corners of his mouth.

The same woman he sleeps with, undoing her shoulder blades with rubs in between the knots, to kissing the back of her hair lightly, to causing her to cry into the sheets... and here he is, wiping at his eyes as tears fall, and his voice strains to be heard, but he must be heard, for posterity sake. When he hits send on the video, leaning back and watching it flood the Panemian webpages and space, revealing his face with those note cards, detailing all that Bonnie Rodney has done, and will continue to do in being president, and then fleeing out his balcony window the moment Lazarus Pietro and his squadron of death come to take him to the culling.

The sheep led to slaughter every Panemian citizen is... Rennie pities them, how the wool is allowed to simply be pulled over their eyes because it _can. _How Bonnie sits in that palace not ever meant for her, with a child that'll be fatherless, swirling wine glasses and laughing, laughing, _laughing _as bombs detonate all over the city. He will never be able to forgive her, Rennie will, not just about his sister, to where he doesn't know if he'll ever find where Lewlyn is buried, but to the fact she ruins her husband's vision. He had been meaning to end the Hunger Games, alongside his sister, and with that over, with him gone, she proceeds as planned.

"_She's always liked them,_" bile appears in the back of his throat. "_She's always liked the blood and the killings and creating monsters to kill those kids, she had just been lying about it to all of our faces. And I believed her..._"

He has arrived at his destination, slipping into an apartment building just off the main circle, climbing up the staircases. Suite 204, with a vanilla chrome door, a golden plaque revealing said number of the suite. He has been here once, for a single date, when his vitality covers a window pane in a strip of frost, as hands grip for the soft parts, for the heavy parts, and all the parts in between. A male voice whispering in his ear, when there's a plot afoot - "_Let's murder your sister..." _the voice whispers, devilish in nature, harmless in intent - and dark hair staring back at him in the reflection.

Lifting his fist to knock on the door, Rennie's breathing hitches as he lets his presence known at Pollux Aetos's apartment, the Master of Ceremonies. He hasn't spoken to him in a week, and he doesn't know what his reaction would be.

There's a pregnant pause, where Rennie's eyes are looking down the hallways, in case monsters in white come bursting out of the walls like wrecking balls, barrels of rifles trained on his back. There's the sound of padded feet behind the door walking up to it, and an all too familiar voice filling the emptiness, filling the quiet. A lock is undone, and the door wrenches open, startling Rennie, before being greeted by the unbelievably handsome Pollux Aetos, with his wave of dark hair, stunning liquid crystal eyes, and pliant hands that soothe out earthquakes in the crevices of his spine.

Pollux has a phone pressed to his ear, mouth open in conversation, and then he pauses, realizing who it is staring back at him from underneath the hood. His throat swells up, Adam's apple bobbing - "_I've tasted that," _Rennie thinks proudly to himself - and the grip on the phone tightens. "I'm going to have to call you back, Patricia." _Ah, Patricia, the secretary that doesn't really exist. _He closes the phone, eyes widening, flaring almost, and before Rennie can start signing something towards the man, he's grabbed by the lapels and pulled into the room.

He stumbles forward, tripping over the carpet, as Pollux slams the door to his apartment. Rennie gets a moment to collect himself, coughing and pounding at his chest, then getting to his feet, setting his tablet down on the coffee table. Pollux looks at the door, and back at the avox, now illegal citizen and wanted criminal in his house.

"What on Earth are you doing here?" the interviewer asks him, crossing his arms. "You have any idea how much danger you are putting yourself in coming here? How much danger you're putting _me _in?" To gesticulate his point, Pollux thumbs towards himself.

Rennie sighs, removing his hood from his head, and Pollux stumbles back for a moment, eyebrows raised. It is a rather shocking change. Rennie Davis, like his sister, had been blessed with scarlet hair, being kissed by fire from down under, and it makes him a suitable choice for being an avox. Had he not been a famous violinist for the elite circle of Capitol citizens, he would've been guessed as one _before _the incident in the dark, with grabbing hands and booming voices, his too terrified to appear.

_All gone._

His hair color is no longer ginger, no longer the curly spirals that dance around his head like the tassels to some chandelier. Shaved on both sides, now a tuff of blonde hair, almost bleached to the point of insanity, to the point where he'll never have ginger roots ever again. The part of him he loved the most, once his voice had been taken away from him, violin snatched away and incinerated, is his hair. How he loved his hair, and how being a fugitive means he must run away. His eyes no longer glitter like emeralds beneath the sea, but hard, stony, now a lone tree trunk surrounded by a wave of fog.

"You've changed yourself..." Pollux whispers.

"_I had to,_" Rennie says in Panemian Sign Language - PSL for short - as pain briefly passes over his face. Lewlyn's main gift... giving him a way to communicate, and it's stolen, a memoir in her name, something he can keep for himself, if nothing else. "_My hair was too recognizable. I'm no longer a real avox. This is a dead giveaway..._"

"What are you doing here?" the interviewer approaches him, cautiously, a hand out, but not getting too close. "Why are you here in my apartment? Bonnie is scouring the city all over for you. I have to get to work and announce the reapings soon, and you're- you're putting yourself in harms way!" Pollux shakes his head, frowning.

Rennie frowns himself. "_Work?" _Something isn't adding up. "_I thought you quit the administration, Pollux. I thought you gave it up."_

Pollux sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I walked away from something else entirely, Rennie," a lump forms in the man's throat, but he doesn't try to interrupt. He'll leave the thought to sit in his brain and decay away, like his sister's corpse in the tub. "Bonnie wanted Valencia to take my position, the girl that won the 100th Hunger Games, but she refused. Bonnie couldn't find a replacement, and begged me to return, even though I never truly left..." he shakes, and there's a glimpse of regret flashing across the man's face. "I was just afraid I was gonna be next. That someone else was going to target me and kill me instead, like Hale and Arizona did to your sister and Calhoun."

The avox squeezes his shut, signing without needing to open his eyes. "_You know it wasn't either one of them. You know it was Bonnie._"

He locks his jaw, looking away and to the floor, sighing. "Yeah, you're right."

Rennie picks up the tablet, holding it close to his chest, and then he raises an eyebrow. The coffee table is new. He remembers the old one, a glass one, see through to the tile floor, as that is where Pollux takes him on that night, that special night where everything ended and began in one fell swoop, when the tributes arrived and danced in their chariots of fire and ivory and silk. This coffee table is solid, a single white rose in a pot sitting in the center, and it is almost picturesque, but Rennie no longer thinks of picturesque when referring to Pollux, a man he cannot read.

"_New coffee table?"_

Pollux's eyebrows pinch together, but then rise, realizing the question, he clearing his throat. "Uh, yeah. Got it a... uh, month ago. After I destroyed the old one..." and his voice trails off.

An unsaid statement flows between the two men. Rennie remembers that conversation, when his sister marches to this very room the night of Interviews, demanding that their relationship be ended, as Rennie comes back to his sister, tail wagging, tongue drooping, like a dog, beaten and bruised, and it is not his finest hour when he points all the fingers towards Aetos, and in the man's rage, he throws the table, shattering it, hiding the glass underneath the cushions, which have been since removed. "_New couch, too,_" Rennie comments. Pollux's style is attractive, but he knows there is nothing of any sort of substance inside, mattering in any way.

"Yeah, it is," Pollux rubs the back of his neck. "Rennie, I need to know why you're here. I have to leave soon. Why are you doing this? Why are you revealing to Panem what Bonnie's done?"

The avox looks at the interviewer with the hardest stare he can muster. For being a man of zero words - not _few _words, but zero - there is a lot of excess emotion he has to force behind his glances. Pollux shivers, and Rennie takes a step forward, closer to him, holding his hands together, linking fingers. Reminiscent of a night bathed in moonlight, in a luxurious blue, in cotton sheets and honeydew, with succulent kisses and hair being twisted. Taut fingers tying knots, elbows undoing them at the speed of light. Promises unspoken, lust filling the air, all in this room, bathed in a blue moonlight, where Pollux sells his soul to the devil, and when Rennie dares to dare.

"_She robbed Panem of a future. I need to expose her in a way that will leave the nation fractured."_

"But why, Rennie? You've- you've never struck me for a revenge type of person..." Pollux is stammering at this point, bullets of sweat trickling down his forehead.

"_She murdered the woman I loved, Pollux. She killed her own husband in cold blood. Destroyed a happy family by throwing the father in front of a train..._" one goes unsaid, in it all. _She betrayed me and my trust; she doesn't deserve to rule, let alone live._

Pollux lifts his head up, balling his tongue against the side of his mouth. "Then what are you planning to do? How would you take her down anyway? She's _president._"

Rennie smiles. He hasn't smiled in at least a week, when he clinks glasses with Lewlyn on a balcony somewhere.

A smile filled with the worst intentions.

"_To be a phoenix from the ashes," _he signs out, and Pollux nods his head, but the comprehension factor is not sinking in. "_I want to start a rebellion. And I want to lead it._"

May the bombs and bullets fly, Rennie proclaims.

May they decorate the sky in sulfur and smoke, Rennie screams.

Let him soak his shoes in Bonnie's blood, Rennie prays.

A phoenix rising from the ashes, an avox with a voice for revolution that'll never be heard.

Panem is not ready.

Panem will _never be ready._

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**Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #2: The Phoenix, of Bombs and Bullets, my latest SYOT, the Sheep Led to Slaughter sequel. I have about four more prologue chapters left to write, as we've got a lot of ground to cover with characters I need to reintroduce or _introduce. _I hope this chapter has explained a few plot points you newcomers may not be privy to you yet, and I am always open for PM's if you need more clarification.**

**Please keep those submissions incoming, as I am not thinking of ending them - unless I receive a _super_ solid cast between now and the end of the month - before the beginning of October, so there is a lot of time to get out there and submit, but make sure to go to my profile and look at the statistics screen to better prepare from where you should submit (District / Gender wise, speaking). I hope you do review; I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'll see you all with the next chapter sometime next week, Chapter #3: The Viper, which I am excited to delve into. Have an amazing day! Love you all! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	3. The Veteran (Prologue III)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #3: The Veteran, and I am really excited for where I will be taking this story and the prologue that I am establishing here. Last chapter, ex-Avox Rennie Davis spoke with the Master of Ceremonies, Pollux Aetos, about a possible... 'Revolution', and there will not be many more details than that I can give you all out of pure secrecy, haha, so hold your breath. I have a lot of submissions, but I am keeping them open until the end of the month, about another fifteen days, and having final decisions in early October, but I am not reaching the tributes until Chapter 7, so there's four more prologue chapters to go. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #3: The Veteran.**

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_~ And so sayeth the Lord, that you look over my transgressions, to not send the viper into my nest to bite my ankle and poison me away from paradise everlasting._

**_Valencia Shale: Victor of the 100th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

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Water rushes down her back in a constant, single stream, but there is no warmth floating in her shower. There is no warmth coming from the faucet. She prefers to bathe in the cold, as it helps wash out the blood. It doesn't remind her of the nine days spent baking in the sun, standing underneath pine and oak trees for shade while acorns fell and clattered on the concrete. It doesn't remind her of the blisters on her hand while she grips the edge of a sword, never using it, never getting a single kill with that _stupid sword, you absolute stupid fu-_

Valencia Shale shudders against the cold tile of the shower, of the glass cage she's enclosed in, where she can see the surroundings of her exposed apartment through distorted glass, droplets coalescing together down her naked back, entangling in her dark hair. "_Blonde hair," _she tells herself, frowning, running a hand across her arm. "_I used to have blonde hair._" Used to, indeed, something Valencia tries to keep out of her mind, but it is getting harder and harder every day now when she goes to stand in the shower, and silly strands of black tangle in her fingers, unlike the lemonade waves she used to remember. A whole year. A year ago, she stood in some silly District 1 outfit, raised her hand, screamed an ever two fateful little words, where the impact doesn't shatter her heart _then, _and Valencia likes to forget the rest.

Except that she can't.

She can't forget the way her left hand, her sword hand, sometimes still spasms in the dark, even when she believes and wakes up terrified that there is a boulder there, crushing the ring and pinkie and thumb and all the digits in between. She can't forget how her pillow is soaked with sweat, as a devil with gorgeous blue eyes and lustrous dark skin breathes the name _Marcus _into her ear, while sliding a talon across the upper cheekbone, slicing ruby red and making her bleed golden ichor, to where Valencia will upright with a scream, grabbing the knife at her bedside table, and stab forward, _forward, forward, _until she's made a new constellation in her placemat at the foot of her bed.

Where she hasn't been home in two months to see her parents, who have no idea if they're gorgeous little darling is doing alright... and as the nineteen year-old newly made Hunger Games victor stands in her cold shower, it hits her. _Reaping Day. _A year ago, _today, _her prospect changes. Her life, and everything she had ever known, is put to the test, and she succeeds. She kills, like the little girl had been taught with a chalkboard and a wooden pointer stick that slams across her knuckles when she gives a wrong answer. To all the other female friends she's lost out on as she gets the best of them in the wrestling ring, to where jealousy is her long time best friend of seven years pulling a knife on her in the lunch room and Valencia busting her jaw open on a table, where everyone watches and she's given applause, and the Head Master names her the lucky volunteer for the 100th Hunger Games, for the 4th Quarter Quell.

Valencia spins a lock of foreign hair around her finger, standing underneath the cold waterfall, resting one hand on the tile in front of her, grime layers where she has dug her nails into the grooves on more than one occasion. Her mentors, her only friends in the cesspool of a city - "_Friends?" she snarks to herself, "More like backstabbers..._" - as they stay in the Training Center, on the District 1 floor, when they're in the Capitol on business that does not pertain to just the Hunger Games, but she refuses to do that. She cannot take another step in there than what is necessary.

She is forced to always do more than necessary.

How lucky she is, or as to how Valencia would call it herself, how unlucky, that the very own Madam President Bonnie Rodney has set her feline eyes on the new victor, taking her under her wing and tutelage on how to rule, on what being a member of the royal family entails. For five hours a day Valencia finds herself stuck in that gilded prison, with the chandeliers that smell of cotton candy, and the amaranthine light bulbs that dance on the paisley wallpaper, and the linen sheets that feel as if people have worn them before, stretched and stuck out with skin. Sitting in those godly uncomfortable chairs in Calhoun's - _Bonnie's, _she reminds herself sharply, _they've always been Bonnie's chairs in her office - _office, where they need to be replaced and the wood squeaks if she moves her butt over a few inches, and Bonnie's eyes, alit with venom and dazzling like jades underneath a damp riverbank find her own, search her, and devour her.

"She's in love with me..." Valencia whispers to herself at nights, the cold nights where she lays nakedly in her bed. "She pretends that she isn't, but now that she's alone, I know she has to be in love with me..." Unfortunately, at that prospect, Valencia has no idea whether or not to be terrified at that prospect. Somehow she has found favor in the eyes of the one who sets the executioner's axe against the bare of her neck, where one wrong step could have her end up like the old Head Gamemaker, Lewlyn Davis's twin brother, Rennie, no tongue, forever made to bathe in cardinal. Cardinal of the people she killed.

Persephone Castor's laugh rings in the corners of the room that are vacant, with zero furniture. Her sweet queen of the Underworld, incinerated by Cerberus's breath, where Kronos, buried forever away in Tartarus, locks her in a wooden coffin until she is exhumed of all bodily fluids, and set to rest somewhere back in District 2. Valencia will never forget her sweet lips against her cheek, how she fell in love with some other Career in the matter of nine days, how long her Hunger Games took, and when she's gone and old and gray, Valencia knows she'll find her ruler somewhere, in whatever blank vastness lies beyond. The same goes for everyone else in that cursed arena dome. Her district partner, who betrays the alliance in a maze of mirrors. Her biggest competition in the Career pack, with a charming smile, that dies before she can give him a dosage of earned respect. The girl from District 7 - Valencia has forgotten her name, she's forgotten the name of the girl she had to kill to make it home... how awful is _she? -_ with the axe in her neck, bleeding profusely, to how the hot water turns her hands the same color.

Valencia turns the shower off, resting her head against the tile, the cool air of the open apartment sinking into her shoulder blades, caressing smoothly. She is about to turn the water back on, as it is not her bill she is running, when the doorbell to her apartment rings. It's dog bark brays and echoes among the glass walls, vibrating the shower, and Valencia's eyes dart to the door, through the distortion of the glass. Who on Earth could that be? Valencia rights herself from resting her head, one hand cupping her breast, the other untangling through the knots of her hair. The trill of the doorbell comes again, this time in a pulsating wave as if the person is pressing their finger up against it and hoping for a response.

"Shit _fuck,_" Valencia cusses to herself, almost slipping on the tile of the shower, slick with water, as her towel is resting on a peg against the wall on the outside of her cage. "Coming!" she yells out, before the person can ring the doorbell again.

The victor will have to say, as she seldom uses this phrase for it has lost all meaning to her, she loves her apartment. She steps out onto the wooden laminated floor, a streaked run of a sandy beach like those in Four, or mimicking the stony shores of the lakes in Ten, taking the towel off of the wall, tucking the knot in so it does not fall down and expose herself to the intruder at the door. Her shower is an open air shower where the glass panes do not reach the roof, but act as a cubicle, to allow the steam to evaporate into the sun. She is surrounded entirely by glass, where the walls and roof are glimmering bars of snowstorm white and sunflower yellow, sunbeams dancing along the walls and up onto her bed, or onto the kitchen counter, made of marble, with a palm tree growing in the corner, a small, dainty little thing, but oh how she _loves _it dearly.

Valencia makes it to the door, scooting along with her wet footprints, wrenching the door open. An absolute stranger looks back at her, hand raised as if to knock, while their pointer finger on their right hand had been extended towards the doorbell to ring for a _third _time - "_Serious, woman?_" Valencia would have wanted to retort at her, but she holds her tongue. It is her tongue that breaks up the Careers, being the leader that ends it - who then jumps up, as if her opening the door had been scary. Valencia blinks at the odd woman perched on her doorstep, where she is at least half a foot taller than her.

"I'm sorry..." the victor drawls out, looking back into her apartment for one. Hanging on a peg, similar to her towel, is her sword. Her sword she had used in the Hunger Games, a weapon she loved and thought she lost to the roller coaster finale back in the palm tree paradise. Madam President had been gracious enough to give it to her, as a token of safety, as a moment of reminder of what she will always be. A killer. "Can- can I help you?"

The woman in front of Valencia is short, perhaps not even breaking five feet. Valencia knows that is rude of her, but staring at the woman and her height, nearly all of her composure fleets her. The woman's eyes, a vicious shade of violet - Valencia knows that cannot be her normal genetically earned color - salutes her, before then heartily shaking her hand. She's of an older age, at least in her mid-fifties, by the way the skin is not primed, almost as if it has been stapled or glued back on itself. The woman has decadent, dark brown hair, in frizzy, almost curly tips at the end, and Valencia sees, in the light, that they are dyed pink, like a carnation, a rose sitting on her bed when Bonnie reveals the apartment to her.

"Constantine Fallorne," the woman says, shaking Valencia's hand. "At your service, Missus Shale!"

Valencia tries removing her hand from the iron-like, death-like grip of the woman, this Constantine's hand that snags like a barbed wire fence onto a loosely fitted shirt, frowning. "Constantine?" she's heard that name before, and then the light bulbs clink together, shattering, and she pulls up on the towel around her waist. "You're the new Head Gamemaker, aren't you? Madam Rodney promoted you just a few days ago."

"The very same," Constantine smiles back at her, and for an odd reason, despite her somewhat unusual appearance - Valencia cannot get over the eyes, how they glow surreally, as if someone is projecting the color onto them from behind her - there's an automatic sense of warmth that bathes over the victor, and she smiles back. She shakes her head, keeping that doting smile on, as if it is permanently there. "I'm sorry, I am just feeling a bit... a bit star struck is all."

She's used to it, now. Used to people telling her how they loved her in the Games, fighting to win. "_Fighting to stay alive,"_ she says, and there's always an unwelcomed sneer from whomever she is talking to after that. No one here in the Capitol besides the people who survived the damned things even know what it means to be in the Games. Not fighting to win. The moment the Cornucopia gong goes out, and her feet meet gravel or grass or dirt of the interstellar pathways of space, it turns into survival. Adrenaline transforms into fear, a mutation, but no one will ever understand. "Well, I hope I don't disappoint," Valencia laughs lightly. "What can I help you with, Mrs. Fallorne?"

"Ms..." the new Head Gamemaker trails off, and she looks down at her feet. Valencia realizes that the woman is practically barefoot. The rugged old sandals on her feet seem to be worn out dry, as if she is walking on loose fabric and not something sturdy. "I am widowed, dearie."

"I'm-" Valencia swallows harshly. "I'm terribly sorry to hear that, Ms. Fallorne."

"Please, call me Constantine," the older woman smiles, and there is a rustled breeze that sends her frizzes to blow in the wind, to Valencia shiver. She wants to get dressed. She needs to get dressed, and unfortunately, bless this woman's doddered heart, she is taking away from that time. "You are even prettier in person than you were on screen. Thank you for fighting so vigilantly in the arena, and for continuing the fight out here."

A ball forms in the victor's throat, and her sword sings to her, a siren song with a melody that sounds like fireworks exploding in the sky, where her fingers were sticky noodles coming out of a pot, where her wrists are broken chopsticks that dig into the bowl holding the noodles, trying to lift the weapon up before the male from District 9 - "_Not even my first kill. It had been Marcus's..._" - can stab her in the gut. Where she ears her first kill, trying to reach that sword. Valencia smiles wryly, wringing her hands, as she's now creating a puddle underneath her at the front doorstep. "Thank you, ma'am. I am sure I made District One and the Capitol very proud." Such a rehearsed line. She's said it so many times she nearly believes it herself.

_Nearly. _

Constantine blinks sweetly at her, and then another pause. "I am sorry, sweetie, my mind keeps blanking. Madam President has requested you meet her in her office."

She figures that to be the case, but to send the new Head Gamemaker? Valencia knows that poor ole Lewlyn Davis, with her throat cut open from ear to ear in a bathtub might not have had every loose screw accounted for either, she's at least able to form a coherent sentence and not lose her train of thought. She'll try to overlook it. "Okay," Valencia nods. The request would have come up sooner or later, but she's starting early, she's starting several hours early. The Reapings are in a couple of hours, after all. "If you forgive my asking, why would she send you and not Head Peacekeeper Lazarus, or, I guess, not the Head Gamemaker?"

The Head Gamemaker blinks at her, as if she needs a moment to process the thought, and then another smile. Constantine Fallorne smiles way too damn much. "I volunteered for it. I have been dying to meet you."

"Flattered," Valencia smiles, where she is anything _but. _She has been curious on who Bonnie would find as a replacement, but she's trying to hide the disappointment on her face. "I am sure the Hunger Games are in good hands. Lewlyn left you all the tools?"

Constantine bites on her lower lip, now looking forty years younger, like she's back in grade school with bows in her hair. "I- I suppose it can be something like that."

"_Thrown to the wolves, I see?" _the victor raises an eyebrow. "You'll do perfect, Ms. Fallorne." _Why can't I just say Miss Fallorne? Why do I have to conform to these societal rules with everyone here? _Another wry smile. "Well, I'll join you in a moment. Just let me get dressed and-"

"One more thing!" Constantine interrupts Valencia, almost to the point where the syllables sputter out in a harsh choke. "Bonnie will tell you when you see her, but she let me know, as I felt like you needed to know. With the tribute parade tomorrow night, Bonnie wants you standing alongside her, as well as Hale Cornerstone and Hector Merviere."

Valencia's eyes widen. Hale Cornerstone and Hector Merviere. The District 2 and District 10 victors in jail... that _Hale and Hector? _Is Bonnie out of her damn mind? "Oh... okay," Valencia nods her head, blinking. "I'll just be a minute."

Constantine nods her head, and while Valencia closes the door, she can hear the woman murmuring to herself, or rather, humming, something about a bird getting its wings caught. Valencia presses herself against the back of the front door, wet droplets from the shower still clotting and dotting her back, clinging to the towel and her hair in darkened locks that shamble like the strands of a flogging rod. She squeezes her eyes shut, hands going to her ears, and the towel dropping and exposing her nakedly to the apartment.

The victor squeezes her eyes shut again, trying to keep it all out. To block it all out, to picture Persephone, or the boy from Nine, or the faded flower she killed, or of Galiant Rushmohone, her first tribute kill, or that stupid _bitch _Lila that drew the knife on her in the cafeteria, the same girl that bleeds out to death with her jaw slammed onto that stupid table. Anything but the poor father figure thrown in front of a bullet train, blood splattering the halcyon lights that signal an apocalypse booming down the causeway. Anything but Hale Cornerstone howling and the echo of her dying scream while her husband is killed in front of her. Those poor children, _their _poor children, who have their eyes covered by Kevia Janelle's hands - Valencia cannot think of her old mentor without wanting to throw up - who see their dad die, and their mom imprisoned, and the kids could be dead too... and how Valencia is too late to hide it from her own eyes.

How it might have been the worst thing she's ever seen in her entire life. More than when her darling queen is incinerated, even more than that.

Valencia sinks down onto the wooden floor, bathing in the sunlight, and there is nothing she can do to stop it.

To stop the scream.

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**Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #3: The Veteran, our next prologue chapter of Bombs and Bullets, catching us up to speed with the victor of Sheep Led to Slaughter, Miss Valencia Shale from District 1, who won my 4th Quarter Quell idea, submitted by a wonderful user: Audmirable, whose tribute is now a wonderful, young adult. Also newly introduced is my new Head Gamemaker Constantine (don't you just love that first name?) Fallorne, where I asked you guys for name suggestions, and the name Constantine was given to me by fellow SYOT writer thorne98 - check out his SYOT 'Death is the Rule', three of my own tributes are in that story and it is incredible - while I thought of the last name.**

**A whole lot I covered, and I hope I am able to bring you new readers up to speed some too. Please continue to submit tributes if you have only given me one, I'll gladly accept a second submission, or if you haven't submitted at all! Also, please review, it'd mean the world to me to know what you are thinking so far, tracking the story as we go, for when I get to cracking and writing out tribute chapters, they keep on coming! I will see you all for the next chapter, Chapter #4: The Tyrant, where we shall get our next look into who is running the whole shebang.**

**I hope you all have an amazing day! I love you all so much! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	4. The Tyrant (Prologue IV)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #4: The Tyrant. We are getting closer and closer to the tribute beginnings for this story, of which I am super excited, as I am planning to have the list ready by Chapter 6 as the month comes to a close and I am getting submissions for spots, and this cast is starting to come together and I am feeling better and better about our prospects. Plot has been afoot for the Capitol characters as well, where we have gotten a look back into our new victor's head, Valencia Shale, from District 1, for the 4th Quarter Quell, submitted by Audmirable, who has met our new Head Gamemaker Constantine Fallorne. Please enjoy Chapter #4: The Tyrant.**

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_~ And so sayeth the Lord, I have given you my teachings and my scriptures and my guidance, and yet you still turn away from me, you ungrateful whores! You, of little mind! _

**_President of Panem Bonnie Rodney P.O.V_**

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Terror.

The one word that has come to her mind, throughout the last week, in establishing order, has been the terror. How she loves it so, feeling the fear feed up snaking ivy tubes that stalk along the mansion's walls, where citizens bow and praise their fearless leader, as she has always ruled them, there has never been a Calhoun Rodney as president no matter what the history books say. They've all lied, and she is working towards making sure history is rewritten correctly. It is a quiet day on the home front, where she stands outside on the terrace, fingers clenched around the stone railing, fingernails digging into the tiny crevices, picking at the foundations, removing their layers bit by bit, granule by granule.

Bonnie Rodney stands tall at the highest peak in the Capitol, where the mansion overlooks the main courtyard and foyers of the city, an expansive garden off to the left, a blooming hedge maze and a rose bush frenzy that has taken over the right wing of the lot. A few extra fountains are being positioned on the property, as Calhoun had not done much in the terms of prettying up the grounds. "_The prettiness comes from the inside," _he tells her, kissing her on the forehead, hand over her belly, for the kid that had never been his. "_We don't need the prettiest building in the Capitol to know we hold the power, Bonnie._"

"And look what good that did you," she scoffs to herself, aloud, tapping fingers on the railing. Her husband, buried six inches deep beneath a birch tree, with dust clouding his lungs and ivory encasing his organs, where his heart shatters in to three while she looks on, clutching that Peacekeeper gun she stole. _Lazarus's weapon. _A dosage of irony, she likes to think herself. Bonnie lifts her head back, feeling the warm sun fall on her neck, rays of light brightening her own halcyon waves, curly and down today, for her appearance tomorrow night, where her hair will stay like this. Her first week as president has been a fun one, or so she likes to call it fun, getting to throw executives in prison who had been on her husband's payroll, taunting victors locked in iron jail cells, where their nails are cracked and bleeding, clawing every which way to find an escape route. "I am alive and you are rotting for your niceness."

Oh how their efforts will be in vain. "No one ever escapes..." she whispers to Hale Cornerstone the first night of her capture, when her own victor partner had been killed, when the little kids screamed and screamed and screamed, and Bonnie laughed, laughed, _laughed. _Hale had bared her teeth, trying to rip out her throat, and Bonnie kicks her in the side with a heeled foot, making sure to dig in some between the ribcage, which has Hale howling and writhing about, feet fettered to the ground, and Bonnie laughs again at the caged animal freaking out with the barrel of the gun placed to their forehead. She is no Enobaria, with filed fangs. She is meek being who overextended her reach, and Bonnie will make sure she knows it. She wants everyone who has extended their reach to know it.

The sliding glass door behind is shuffled open, heavy boots falling on the carpet by the way the sound clumps together with the fabric. Bonnie turns her head profile, keeping her eyes out on the ongoing decorations of the gardens. "Commander?" she asks, venturing out into the void of possibilities of who has arrived. No one else has dared to approach her the way Lazarus has, for being Head Peacekeeper is something few men have gotten the opportunity to become. They must be hard set in their goals, vicious always, willing to dole out the worst of punishments to the worst of criminals, and be fully devoted to the Capitol cause. She has room to say that he will never lapse, he will never turn, he will never fall from grace like an Avox that must not be named.

She broke the rule by even thinking of him, Bonnie swearing to herself, closing her eyes, where there is a flash of auburn hair and emerald eyes, and soft hands pillaging her shoulder blades, and where her stomach grew, where life had been drawn into existence at his persistence.

"Yes, Madam President," Lazarus answers, stepping out onto the terrace, leaving the sliding glass door open, he standing stock still in the doorway, hands clasped over one another in front of her. He is a tall man, Bonnie realizes, as Calhoun had been over six feet, and so is he, at least 6'5, with a commandeering voice, arms the size of her head without exaggeration, a sharp and slicked back wave of ebony hair, and piercing brown eyes, always shrouded in disappointment. A lot of the Capitol, as amazing as it is, brings disappointment. "You requested to see me."

Bonnie inhales a shaky breath, turning to face him, but she keeps her arms by her side. Crossing them is the giving away of power, the expression of nonchalance, of not caring, of not wanting to hold whatever meager surface of the reins possible. Today is a big day, especially given the circumstances, of her husband having wanted to end the Hunger Games and having protocols in place that he would've executed - she winces distastefully at the word choice; she should honor him somewhat, they were one flesh at _one point _\- would he be alive. Ever since Rennie's message went out to the world, showing the Capitol of his truth, it has been a lock and key system in the city. No one is to be trusted, moreso than normal, and Bonnie sees spies everywhere, lurking in the shadows of the mansion, where Lazarus sleeps slumped up against one of the walls in the kitchen. He does not dare get any closer to her bedroom.

Truth be told, and Bonnie hates having to relent this information to the cloud of consciousness that floats above her head, she does not want to have to be 'president' today. She wants to sit inside her bedroom, stand in front of the crib, and rock it back and forth, while her baby giggles and laughs, a month old at this point, a nurse on standby should anything go wrong. A part of her twinges in hurt, whenever she looks down at her daughter, and what she had stolen from Calhoun. His pocket of joy. "_A pocket of joy that wasn't ever yours. This is Rennie Davis's child, and he doesn't even know, you impotent screwup. A legacy you wanted, and I took it away from you,_" she snarls, when she thinks he doesn't hear her. Wherever he is, always looking at her, watching her every movement, every moment of her life.

The bed will stay empty, she can respect Calhoun that much, while he moans from beyond the grave. No other man will climb into bed with her, she refuses the notion of company. The bed is cold, and she grabs four blankets, bulking them up in the way she'd remember how he used to sleep, where he'd be on his side, on the left half of the bed, where she does not even move sides, sticking to the right half, head resting against the pillows while her daughter snoozes softly in the corner, her eyes directed on the ceiling, making paintings out of the etched designs above.

"Is everything ready for tomorrow?" she asks, now keeping her back turned, looking out across the city.

"Yes ma'am," Lazarus says, and Bonnie whips around, eyes widening with turbulent fury.

"What did I say about calling me ma'am?"

"Not to use it. It makes you sound old."

"Am I old, Mr. Pietro?"

"No, Madam President, you are not," Lazarus bows his head dutifully, one arm holding his Peacekeeper helmet to his side.

"Thank you," Bonnie says, turning back around, and her fingers morph into talons, digging into the stone, clenching her teeth. "And the preparations, again, Commander?"

"Double security for District Four, an extra squadron for Districts Three, Five through Nine, Eleven, and Twelve, and quadruple security for Districts One, Two, and Ten. On those three trains, five Peacekeepers for every individual on said train."

It is not enough. It'll never be enough. With Hector gone, the district must suspect something, one half of the Merviere pair ending up dead, the other in prison, and a Career victor from One, where the Careers are abhorred nationwide to now take the lead, she can only imagine. Two is not necessarily the same boat, always having been the most devout, having been the ones to kiss and lick the Capitol's boots, and One... District 1 would never. Bonnie knows Kevia's heart, how the woman is always wanting to serve, to be wanted and needed and loved, how she laps up the milk set out for her like a cat, and Valencia, oh _sweet _Valencia, she'd never... she's been handed a gracious opportunity, thankful to still be alive,

"How was Ms. Cornerstone this morning?" Bonnie cannot help resist smiling at the change of title for Hale's name. Those that resist must be broken.

"Feisty as usual," Lazarus reports, and rather drone quality to his speech, zero inflection, not as so much a slight raise in his eyebrows. A quirkiness, however, peaks up a bit, "She tried to bite my hand when I handed her the breakfast tray, and then tried to lunge at me for the whip. I did not strike her, as you would've wanted me to, Madam President," he hangs his head in shame, a burly man nearing his fifties, sounding so defeated... Bonnie wonders if he had been abused as a child, for having such deferential behavior. The report is the same every time, when she asks him of the victor from Two's visit. He never hits her, but relishes in making sure Hector's blood paints the stone walls of the prison. It does not bother her whether or not Hale comes out unscathed in this mess, she had killed her husband as usual, and Hector might need to be let up from the beatings, he had been only an accessory to murder, not actually committing any murders himself, smart enough to leave when the going got rough.

"She seems to live to bite things," she clucks her tongue. "If need be, restrain her mouth in some way. If that does not work, you are given permission to break her jaw, and leave it broken."

"Yes, Madam President," the Head Peacekeeper responds, dutiful as always.

Bonnie turns, eyes glinting with curiosity. "You're from District 2, Commander?"

"I am," Lazarus shifts slightly, one hand going to the butt of the whip, which is bundled up in his back pocket, the white leather resting on the chalkier, darker tone of the handle. "Had been a Career academy hopeful, but never had been too good to make it to the Games."

"Does the connection to home cause you to be softer with Ms. Cornerstone?"

Though he is good at hiding it, Bonnie sees it, just a glimpse, the way his pupils constrict, and a thin line forms at the edges of his mouth, cheeks hallowing some, as if he is balling up his tongue in the center of his mouth. Worry. Not terror, but worry, as Bonnie can smell terror when it reeks off of a human body; Hector Merviere is ripe with it. "No, Madam President, it does not. She is a traitor, and traitors do not get any let up from me. She is not a representative of District 2 any longer."

Bonnie nods her head, a small smile dancing on those faint porcelain lips of hers, lips with poison salivating the few inches between her lower lip and chin. "That is all, Commander Pietro. You are free to task out patrols for the day, and if you wish, relax for the remainder of the day. You will be working overtime for this week leading up to the Games."

Lazarus bows his head. "Certainly, Madam President."

He turns to go, and something stills in Bonnie's mind. A piece of data she hadn't told Calhoun, not fully, never having thrown in it his face. At the lack of his ownership on why they never had a child. Bonnie places a hand on her stomach, on her now empty womb, recovering, healing. Rennie does not know that the child is his, despite her - the daughter - foreseen projections of having auburn hair when she's older, and when Calhoun did not possess the recessive gene for red hair. She never told him, she had never mentioned it, for she wanted the child to be hers and Calhoun's... he had still been an _avox, _the scandal that would have erupted. It had been that night when Bonnie's mind twisted some, gears churning foul smoke out of her ears.

"Commander Pietro?" she says his name, turning around, when he stills, eyes meeting hers, but briefly, only for a second, where they fall on the stone in front of her feet instead. He does not say anything, but the look in his eyes is knowing enough that she can continue. "There is something I haven't told anyone, but it seems fitting for you to know," another nod, and Bonnie licks her lips, closing her eyes, left hand behind her to grip at the railing. "When Calhoun and I were trying to get a baby, the few times we managed before, I lost some as miscarriages, and that was early on," she shifts some, brushing her foot on the stone, trying to consume her rage. "On from that, it was Calhoun. He had become impotent. He was sterile, and wanted a legacy so badly he had been making me feel like I was what was wrong in our relationship," Bonnie bucks her head up some, teeth clamped down on her tongue so she does not cry. "My child is not Calhoun's," to which Lazarus raises an eyebrow. "It is Rennie Davis's child, though he does not know it." The Peacekeeper's eyes furrow together angrily, sparks lighting in his iris. "I do not want my daughter's father, a traitor, out free. Find him for me, Commander."

"Of course, Madam President, of course," and with that Lazarus, bows his head, walking back inside the mansion. Though the information comes at a shock, now being the second person in the Capitol still breathing to now know this secret. A secret that could destroy what she's building, perhaps, a chance for ruinous effect, and Bonnie does not invest in chance.

She turns away from the sliding glass door, hands furling and unfurling on the terrace. This is what disappoints her the most, of the whole ordeal, Rennie's defection, when his message of her nefarious - _all lies, _she tells herself in front of the bathroom mirror, where she punches it and scarlet oozes down her knuckles, _all lies from a traitor _\- deeds goes to the Capitol airflows, and she is panicking, trying to ensure the footage never leaves their airspace, for the damage _that _would cause would be unprecedented. If there is one thing she can hand to her husband, he had been good, up until the end when he wanted to upturn the table and throw away the pieces, at keeping stability in Panem, where the districts were kept in line, and there was not much talk of rebellion or uprisings, and Bonnie has no idea how he managed it.

And here Rennie is, unable to see the opportunity in front of him, wasting it, throwing it away.

Over... what?

His sister? Bonnie scoffs to herself. Lewlyn Davis tortured him, turned him into the mute beast that he is, and he _fell _in love with her, like she 'fell' in love with him. It makes her want to throw up, truth be told, but Bonnie knows puking would be unfit for the leader of the greatest nation in the history of the world.

Bonnie extends her gaze out over the Capitol, over the gilded land shrouded in chrome, silver, gold, and ivory, how pretty it is, how... _fragile _it is. How Rennie wants to destroy it all, playing a game of checkers when the rest are playing chess. Bonnie moves her king out of the way, knocking it to the side, letting it be taken out by a pawn, a measly pawn, where the Queen is surrounded by the knights, the rooks, the bishops, and the vast sea. An island fighting a continent, barraging storms bombarding the coast.

She narrows her eyes in on the land, on _her _land, the one she is ruling with no one else to say she can't, or that she shouldn't.

"Whatever game you're playing, Rennie," she says aloud, though she knows he'll never hear her, that no one will ever hear this, "I am playing too."

_It's a war you want?_

_It is a war you are going to get._

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**Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #4: The Tyrant, for Bombs and Bullets. Man, oh man, I love getting to write these old characters and getting back in their heads, as they are some fun animals to work with. I hope, for the newcomers to this story, the puzzle pieces are being built and they are making some more sense then they were when you first submitted, but Slaughter is always there for you to glance at if you need the full picture that I cannot simply rehash for this story, or we'll never get anywhere. Bonnie Rodney is one character, for sure, as power has its reaches. **

**I hope that a few of you out there will submit to the spots that have a single tribute given to them - it is just the latter half of the cast available now - as I have cast the rest, so far, as they still won't technically be closed until the end of the month, when I have the sixth chapter entirely finished, as the cast is the last thing I add to it. I hope you all do review and follow and favorite, it'd mean so much for your support, as this story will be bigger than Slaughter in some cases, and I want everyone on board for it. I hope to see you all again with Chapter #5: The Embittered, which I plan to have out either this weekend or early next week, one step closer to the tributes. I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	5. The Embitter (Prologue V)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with the next chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #5: The Embittered. We are another step closer to the revealing of the main tribute cast, that chapter I am planning to have out by next Friday, October 4th, so we are really close to this can kicking off. Last chapter was from our president's POV, Bonnie Rodney, and her reach is extending, and she's out for Rennie with a vengeance. We are returning to the victors again for this chapter, and for the next chapter, a surprise that I won't say. I am very excited for this story to get its kick-off, hope you all are ready. Enjoy Chapter #5: The Embittered.**

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_And so sayeth, the Lord, how do you reward those that are good in your service? Am I worthy to you for an everlasting eternal reward when I bow at your feet?_

**_Kevia Janelle: Victor of the 84th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

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Things have changed. Despite it being just a week ago without any contact, after he had rudely told her to get out of his house, here she finds him lounging on her couch in _her _Victors Village home. Oh how the tables have turned. Kevia wants a cigarette, but she knows the effects of smoking indoors, and it is still super early in the morning - reaping hasn't happened yet, after all - and she doesn't stress smoke. She smokes because she likes it, and that's it. At least there isn't a dead sheep in her kitchen lime last time, and he isn't naked, which is something she has tried to bleach from her mind, but whenever she sees him just in passing, it is impossible not to. A shiver runs through her, as she finishes making her fourth cup of coffee, running a finger around the rim.

"Do you want a cup?" she asks him.

Fellow victor, Lance Viel, someone who has called her disgusting and rude and terrible and all the things under the sun, looks at her from his spot, sitting on an armrest, hands folded together as if he were praying. His dark eyes find her in the corner, surrounded by white walls, fingers tracing over the porcelain shards of the cup, feeling the grittiness underneath her fingers. She wonders why he has decided to come over to her house, when they've been separated for a week, never interacting with one another, just frosty glances from across the cobblestones. However, she is feeling lonely, for no one is willing or wanting to talk to her, rumors tossed around the victor circle for her dealings with Bonnie, and how that might be why three of the most influential have gone off the map, some not knowing in Arizona Merviere's death. Or Hale and Hector's imprisonment.

Kevia never meant for that to happen, and she knows that a deity above would believe her while no one earthly would, and especially not Lance, which is what she is debating while they stare at one another from across the tiled floors. She wanted approval, and a part of her liked Hale, and she enjoyed Arizona's company far more than most; Hector hadn't done a thing to her, but fell through like collateral. War encompasses anyone and everyone; they do not ask for their punishments as the bombs collapse their houses and the roofs above them fall apart, melting at the foundations. She stirs her coffee slowly, the spoon scraping against the side of the cup, leaving a ringing noise as the motion stills. Lance's eyes flicker back to her, for a moment, furrowed in petulant anger, but there's a softness behind the stare as well, one that has Kevia shuddering.

She hates being separated from him, an outcome she did not think would happen. He had painted himself to be such a loyalist.

"I'm glad you came over," Kevia says, her throat barely having enough power to even get that out of her system. She takes a sip of her coffee, which has three cups of creamer in it and six sugars. There are people in other districts who do not even know what coffee is and here she is, pouring so much excess into it she can hardly taste the coffee in it to begin with. "And you didn't say if you wanted a cup," she turns her back to him, back to the counter, fingers twitching towards the cabinets, wrenching them open. "I'll make you one though."

"I don't want one, Kevia," Lance responds, his voice sullen, as if he hadn't spoken in a week. Knowing him, Kevia wouldn't be surprised.

"Oh please, don't be childish," she teases. "You love coffee." That is how they met, when her hair is a natural blonde, and he still has muscle, and she kisses him on the temple as a goodbye, having just won the year before, and never interacting with him.

"I don't want one from _you,_" the other victor says more pointedly, and there is a shifting of leather as his body leans forward some on the chair. Kevia stills, righting her head, locking her jaw. She cannot believe he is so hung up about all of this. She made a mistake, people died, what's the big deal? Her hand holds onto the cabinet door, and she still opens the cabinet door, grabbing a mug. "Don't you ever listen to me?" Lance gets louder, and there's movement behind her, as he gets to his feet. "I said I don't want you to make me a _fucking _cup of coffee!"

The victor turns around immediately, her free hand going for the knife she used to cut her biscuit in two that rests just up on the stovetop. The silver blade glints off of the lights above, and she holds the weapon closer to her. Lance pauses in his movement, and his eyes soften, Lance's hands, which were raised indeed, fall limply back to his side. Kevia keeps her eyes wide and on him. She has never heard him raise his voice at her like that, not in the same way as it had been when he kicked her out of his home. This is different. It is barbaric, loud, sulfurous, as if he had channeled a bit of Bonnie's might into him. Kevia sets the knife back down - her last kill in the Games had been some thirteen year-old who hid in the trees, killing squirrels and birds as his food, he had never fought anyone, and she sinks a knife into his right eye, throwing it so hard the blade comes pokes out the other side - but keeps it there just in case. Lance's eyes don't leave her, or the blade.

Her other hand is now behind her, still reaching for the mug. "You are going to have a cup, Lance. And then you're going to talk to me as normally as you can as to why you came over," she cannot resist the smug smile that follows after, "And when we're through, and you've zipped your pants up, I am going to kick you out of my house like you did to me."

A fire burns behind Lance's eyes, one with smoke that is black and smells of iodine, where the flames turn into that of a core of a dying star while they eat up the curtains. His hands stay by his side, but the fury that is clenched in his jaw, that of which grinds his teeth at night, she can smell it emanating off of him, as if he is sweating rage. "I'd never hurt you, Kevia, you know that..." as his eyes suggest something entirely different. She knows he could snap her neck if he wished, but she hasn't seen that come out of him yet. She is bringing that knife with her to the Capitol; she'll sleep with it if she has to.

"I know," Kevia sets her mouth into a hard line. She takes another sip of hers, as she then loads the coffee machine, pressing a button signaling what size to make the brew, choosing the largest one. "I know, Lance."

The leather squeaks again, as Lance goes to sit back down, rubbing a hand over his face. Worry lines sink into his forehead, as if someone is digging the dull end of a stick into the skin, dragging it left and right. Kevia knows that Lance is now forty, but she has never seen him look so old, as if he has aged an extra twenty years. The brewing finishes, but he likes his black - "_Like his_ _men_,_" Kevia thinks cheekily to herself _\- and she hands him the cup. Kevia is barefoot on the tile, the cold chills causing her to recoil slightly, synapses shocked awake. "Thank you," Lance says, taking it, drinking a massive swig. She'll have to make him another cup in a minute, he never knows how to handle himself around caffeine. He wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. "You already know I'm not mentoring with you this year."

"Yeah, it's Emmet," she says, playing with a bracelet on her right arm. Not one of Bonnie's pieces of jewelry. She'll never touch another piece of hers ever again, she'll forbid herself to do that. Now that she is officially the president - she murdered, Calhoun, Kevia knows that in her heart of hearts, unsure how to handle that information. How long will it be till the knife is angled at her instead? When will her time be up? - that means anything of hers if off limits. Kevia lies awake at night, staring at the ceiling, watching the designs swirl together and mesh into one amorphous blob, no one to warm her or keep her company, simply thinking. Most of the drama acting as the centerfold around the victor circle, and their trust with the Panemian government, all over a necklace. _A necklace. _Her hand drags down on the metal, her mouth drying up. "As you're helping District 10..." her voice drops off, and she takes a cautionary step back.

Lance looks up at her, he having been taking another sip of his coffee, eyes blanketed with disappointment, brown irises that bury her in shame, shame that tastes of rotting metal, copper splashing the back of her throat. "Yep, I'm relocated to District 10," and then the face cannot help but twist into a sneer. "All thanks to you and your stupidity."

Kevia doesn't say anything about that, although she wants to, the desire flaring up in her stomach, ready to erupt, but her yelling levels do not match his, where he towers over her, and has the ability to slam her head against the side of a building. He might have removed himself from the violence and the killings and all of that, but it still sits within him somewhere, and it seems only she has the gift of reaching inside, ripping the rest of it out. "When's the last time Emmet has even mentored?" she wrinkles her nose.

"Seven years ago, now," Lance says.

"Is he, still, y'know..." Kevia trails off, not wanting to address is. Most of them have their own comforting mechanic, one of their own fleeting pleasures that takes away the pain, to help lessen the sizzle of an iron hot blade poking their stomach. Lance's has always been needing to hurt himself slightly, either by willingly walking into the path of destruction and danger, or a bruise on his thigh, a bite mark at the crook of his elbow... hers is smoking, inhaling chemicals and cyanide and coughing it all up in a black sludge pile at the base of the toilet.

"Still in his cups?" A shallow nod. "He's gotten worse," and at that Kevia inhales sharply. Lance frowns, though, after that. "How do you not know any of that, Kevia? He lives four houses down from you, and lives next to mine."

She chews on the inside of her cheek. "I don't hang around you guys often."

"Figures..." Lance shakes his head, and he finishes his cup. "I don't know how he'll be, though. Back up there. Verity believes he has maybe two months left if his drinking gets worse before his liver gets out, and it isn't like that'd be a humbling experience for him."

Kevia takes the mug, going back to the counter to make him another one. The reaping is to start in an hour, and they have to leave shortly, but she doesn't want to. She had spent nearly all her time on the break at the Capitol, and when that hadn't been the case, on the victory tour with Valencia, which pulls absolutely nothing into the fray, nothing invigorating or exciting in her life. Kevia is afraid that if she steps back into the Capitol, under Bonnie's influence, that the moment she ascends over the threshold, it'll ensnare her, and she'll drag everyone else down into the murky depths as she flails.

"Isn't Emmet's son volunteering this year?"

"Cyril," Lance says. "A decent kid, who'll be mentored by his drunk father. Emmet isn't involved with him as far as I am aware."

She boots the machine up again, closing her eyes as the whir takes hold of all the empty air in the room, occupying the silence. Kevia, in all of her twistedness, knows one thing for sure, that she is not having kids. Her parents wouldn't approve, living in the same house now as they were when she had been eight years old, physically signing herself up for the Academy, but she doesn't care what her parents would think. There had been grumblings, things she is unsure about going around how to verify, that Calhoun and Lewlyn were going to end the Games. She'd have kids then, because despite being a victor, it does not grant her amnesty for further reapings, for however long the Games would go.

"_In perpetuity," Bonnie tells her one night long ago, sitting on the presidential balcony, drinking Merlot and sharing fishwife tales of mustaches and the potency of a man. _

_"Perpetuity?" Kevia frowns. She knows what the word means, as she's somehow attracted the attention of a king's wife to act as her company._

_"The Games would go on forever, Kevia. Panem is as much of the Hunger Games as the Hunger Games are as much of Panem," a long sip of the alcohol, where Kevia watches the woman's lips wrap around the glass, leaving the surface behind in a glossy sheen of ruby red lipstick. Luxurious, satanic fruit, those lips. "They'll never end. Calhoun's successor will have them. And so will their successor."_

_"And what if you were president?"_

_A pause, and the crickets chirping amplify their sound. "If I were president?" Bonnie echoes. A clucking of her tongue. "I'd have to keep them, too. For perpetuity. Panem's legacy."_

That kills the fantasy immediately, and Kevia jars slightly at the counter, the mug moving out from underneath the faucet in which the coffee had been coming from. Some sloshes onto her hand out of the mug, and the drip burns her knuckles, she crying out weakly, and the cup falls off of the counter, onto the tile, rolling over, but not breaking. Lance leaps to his feet, rushing over to her. "Ahh..." Kevia lets out lightly, hissing to herself, holding her hand up to her chest. Wasn't too hot to burn her hand, but it shocks her well enough.

"Are you okay?" Lance asks, domineering over her. "You spaced out for a second and then you moved violently. What's wrong?"

She has to hand it to him, how he has that power to suddenly shift dynamics on the turn of a dime. One minute, he is ticked at her and screaming at her, the next, he's the one getting a napkin, to wipe away the coffee off of her hand and the counter, picking up the now empty mug which has spilled out onto the floor. Kevia lifts her hands up, noticing that they're shaking. She's hated the Games, in some way, in the back of her mind, a snake that lashes out in its little corner but has nowhere to go. She thought Bonnie would be different, in some way, but clearly not... not if the Games were continuing, as such in an _hour. _

"Bonnie isn't going to ever end the Games..." Kevia whispers to herself, and then latches onto Lance's shoulders. "They're never going to end, Lance!"

He furrows his eyebrows together, frowning, trying to keep her hands off of him, her heart falling at the way his face responds to the concept of her physically touching him, in how deflated he acts. "Kevia, what on Earth are you talking about?" and he goes to wipe up the rest of the coffee on the floor. "Of course she wouldn't end them. Her husband helped keep them afloat, and he was a good guy! She's evil, Kevia, and murdered Calhoun for it, and who knows else..." a slight pause, but one that is incapable of once again hiding the shame and disappointment. "Did you think Bonnie would suddenly wipe away the law like that?"

"I- I- I thought..." her lower lip quivers, and Kevia has to sit back some, to grip the counter, so she stops physically moving. It hits her all at once, as if one of those Capitol trains had collided into her, the way they did to Arizona, splattering his brain matter all over the wall and onto the Peacekeepers who were the ones to throw him into the train. She had always pictured Bonnie to be softer, but not due to her gender, not due to her sex, to simply have a benevolence to her that no one else did, but if she takes a single second to think beyond the hair extensions and Hale not finishing a salad, the picture is painted right there for her, still freshly dripping as new coats were only just applied. And she led the woman right to it, right to the throne to continue it all, forever and ever and ever, in perpetuity. "I'm the one that gave Bonnie the power," and that brings Kevia to drop down onto the floor, back up against the tile. "Oh my God," she puts her head in her hands. "Lance, what have I done?"

Lance rights himself up, balling his tongue up against his cheek. "Something irreversible, Kevia. You're the last person to even notice it."

Her head juts at him like a lightning bolt, eyes wide and wild. "When do you head to District 10?"

He shakes his head in dissent. "I don't head there. I ride the train with you and Emmet and our tributes like normal. I will be living on District Ten's floor though, for the training," and he crosses his arms over his chest. "And I will treat them just like Marcus and Valencia, and like all the others before us."

"You should get going," she says. "Go and get ready," a hard lump forms in her throat. "The reaping is in an hour and I need to change." There are coffee splatters on her white dress, and the way they dry, stuck in the light, it is as if she is hemorrhaging onto the cloth, or as if he had struck her with a sword in the back.

Lance locks his jaw, seeing as she is no way to argue on the matter, for if he is to stay behind and check on her, to do none of that. He doesn't even say goodbye when he leaves, as Kevia curls in on herself, staring at the dent on the tile where the mug had fallen, while pressing her hands to her face, trying to control her breathing. How could she be so stupid? How could she not see the way Bonnie wrapped her around her finger, spinning and toying with her head, until she manages to sit in the most luxurious chair in the house.

All courtesy of her.

"_What have I done?_" Kevia thinks to herself in horror. What has she allowed?

When the front door slams shut, indicating Lance's departure, Kevia is unable to hold it back anymore, and her throat burns, as she unleashes a terrifying, rage inducing scream.

The embittered continue their suffering journey.

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**Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #5: The Embittered, and we are back to where it all started for Sheep Led to Slaughter, with the first two characters of this 'verse' being Lance Viel and Kevia Janelle, discussing those poor tributes off to the slaughter. They're certainly a dynamic pair, that come with their own baggage and issues, that I love to unpack, but a good bit of the exposition discussed here is done in much more detail for the prequel, which if you need to refresh yourself on, please be my guest! But beyond that, there is something brewing, but I can't reveal too much more about that. **

**For you Sheep Led to Slaughter veterans, did you notice something cool about how I ended this chapter, linking it back to the first story, very first opening scene? I'm curious if you spotted it! And it also looks like Kevia might not be as easily brainwashed as Bonnie would like to believe. Next chapter, ya'll, I am so excited for, is Chapter #6: The Spy, and it'll be from the perspective of our Master of Ceremonies, Pollux Aetos, reintroduced back in Chapter Two. This chapter will also have the full tribute cast at the bottom of the chapter, and I will include it on my profile too, replacing the submission stat stuff; submissions close this Friday, October 4th, so please, if you still want to submit, go for the open spots that I still have up, I love a little bit of healthy competition. **

**Please review, and all that wonderful jazz! I can't wait to see you all again for the next chapter. I love you guys so much! Hope you have an amazing day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	6. The Spy (Prologue VI)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #6: The Spy, the last of our prologue chapters for Bombs and Bullets, and yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is true, that at the bottom of this chapter is the list of tributes that I am using for this story, as then is the list on my profile. However! I please hope you do actually read the contents of this chapter, as the actions that will be taken in this little bit will be monumental to the story as a whole, and shit is going to go down. Last chapter, two victors from Sheep Led to Slaughter - Kevia Janelle and Lance Viel of District 1 - have come to an impasse, and Kevia has realized how majorly she's messed up. Hope you all enjoy Chapter #6: The Spy.**

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_And so sayeth the Lord, that you do not wrought your vengeance on me as I try to do the right thing, as I try to instill good for the good of the people._

**_Master of Ceremonies Pollux Aetos P.O.V_**

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He is learning, slowly, but surely, on how to forgive himself. It has taken a long time for him, and perhaps he'll never reach a fruitful conclusion like he'd hoped, but he is building that ladder to heaven every few steps at a time. Master of Ceremonies Pollux Aetos leaves his apartment just at around midday, after saying goodbye to Rennie Davis and his new hairstyle, the mute man fleeing to the underground. Where? He isn't so certain, but honestly, Pollux doesn't care, moreso trying to not to notice how much he is sweating, how fast his heart is racing in his chest, when he locks the door to his apartment, perhaps incapable entirely of ever going back there. The contents of the package given to him thump against his chest as he firmly holds it in place underneath his suit.

It is wrapped up in paper, brown musky paper probably stolen from a restroom, and Pollux reminds himself to make sure he washes his hands in the near future, if he isn't killed first, of course. In his walk over to the production studio, where he'll sit at one of the stupid chrome desks, holding sheets in his hands, going over the reapings, it gives him the time to think, to meditate, and to realize. He'll never forgive himself for last week, for the last three weeks, when everything goes to shit, and the palace explodes, and his heart falls. Pollux is unable of attending Calhoun's funeral, where, on accounts from Lazarus, the Head Peacekeeper, the bullet hole had been so neatly cleaned and taken care of, and Pollux vomits into his toilet soon after the gremlin dressed all in silver leaves the room.

Pollux knows he's the reason why Calhoun and Lewlyn are dead. The districts might suspect something fishy going on, especially when a few of their victors vanish and disappear off of Panem's radar, and the Capitol is now on alert for traitors hiding in every corner after Rennie's broadcast leaking onto every screen in the Capitol... but he knows the truth. He remembers, three weeks ago, as Bonnie's plan comes into fruition when she has her baby, how he had so proudly walked into her office and resigned, only to be coaxed by her gentle hands plaiting into her shoulders to come back to the stage. "_I started it,_" he thinks to himself bitterly. He honestly did, when he places a moment to think about it. It had been him who planted the seed into Rennie's head while taking him from the back. It had been him who told Bonnie that he wanted to murder Lewlyn, said it to the woman's face while sitting on her couch.

Because he had been bitter. He had been rejected, humiliated, and he wanted to take a bit of that shame from the people who wronged him. However, had he honestly been wronged? Pollux sits in his shower every day now, resting his head on the cool tile, crying to himself, where he is incapable of differentiating between tears and the droplets from the hot stream which is which. His best friend, Calhoun, _president, _is dead because of him. He knew about it. Bonnie had told him and he did nothing, he said nothing. Part of him had wanted to foolishly believe that she had been lying, which she had very well might have been doing, as he knew that Bonnie had the capacity to lie every once in awhile. "_Everything she says is a lie, however,_" he torts to himself sharply. That is no longer a fact. He cannot trust a single thing she says.

When he resigns, Pollux hid in his apartment for the remainder of the day, peeking out of the blinds and peering at the cobblestone streets leading up to the staircase that'd venture to his apartment, checking for Peacekeepers. He did it on the same night the Peacekeepers did show up to his room, with Lazarus at the front, throwing him into a safehouse, guarded by legions of cherubs in their white uniforms, guns trained on the single door that led back to the threatening outside. Pollux, for a moment, entertains the idea, bunching his night robe in his hands, that there really had been a shooter or murderer or vigilante running amok in the Sector A of the Capitol, killing administrative officials left and right. It took him another four or so hours, after sitting with a lone cup of coffee back in his room that the vigilante, the murderer... it had been someone he knew all along, and he weeps bitterly, the coffee scalding his tongue.

He does not know why he has agreed to Rennie's nonsensical plan, for it will surely just get him killed. He has no reason to extend his neck out so the executioner's blade will sever his head. Pollux knows he has operated through his administrative years, leading as Panem's PR face for so long, in the sole dealings of being selfish. Everything had been for his own personal gain. His attraction to Rennie had simply been that, it simply had been lust, and he knew it, but he also didn't, when he goes out with him again on a second date before Lewlyn arrives at his apartment, telling him to end it. He had to hand it to the Avox, the clever ass, someone he had never assumed could be so tricky, who would be playing a game of chess while he had been sitting at a table, devising strategies for checkers. Chess invited the idea of multiple players, multiple components.

Pollux is the Master of Ceremonies, not exactly the job in Panem that has the most destructive power when it comes to policy and decision making. It strikes him, like a bolt of lightning to the forehead, however, the very same morning, before Rennie knocks on his door with the Doomsday package, that he might actually have the most influence in a way he had never thought about before. Propaganda... it is _his _role. Not dressing up in sparkly suits and getting to wear his hair in gorgeous styles, not to shake hands of teenagers about to killed like cattle, prodded with electricity, and certainly not to be sleeping around with other members of the administration. His job is to influence, to sway, to cause everyone that dissents to be persuaded to switch their dissuasion. His power in the wrong hands... why... that could spell _disaster. _Pollux is incapable of keeping the grin on his face.

He nods to a Peacekeeper standing in front of the studio, he allowed immediate access. Rennie had gone to his apartment under the guise of light, but unable to show who he is, for Bonnie has orders of shooting him on sight. The damage he could do to the administration she has wanted to build for so long is massive, but Pollux only knows maybe a tenth of what that damage could be. If he is to go through with what has been entrusted to him, he might have to change his hair color too, to go underground and wear ghastly oversized hoodies that'll crush his poor head. He loves himself too much for that, but he also loves himself too much to let Rennie down again. He could've protected him, could've protected his sister... he could've protected Calhoun from the viper that wears stilettos and bleeds ichor if cut.

There is so much he could've done, but Pollux doesn't have forever to try and cope with it, to cope with the here and now.

His body immediately seizes up in the cold. The studio is always freezing, no matter how many times he has complained to Calhoun in the past on turning the heat up, but in the president's - _ex-president, _Pollux corrects himself sharply, _ex-president because of you and your inability to do anything, you coward _\- esteemed opinion, when he knew absolutely nothing about electronics and the safety or preservation of the camera equipment that changing the temperature from sixty-five to seventy-five degrees had been a luxury none of them could afford. It could simply melt the wires, but Pollux scoffs into his brandy at the notion. Melted wires meant the computers no longer worked; if they no longer worked, he didn't have to go to work, and there are a many days when Pollux wants to go sit on the balcony and drink mint juleps.

It is no longer Lewlyn Davis's balcony anymore, however, a thought that has Pollux stop walking for a second, frozen in place. Though it is the same apartment she had been murdered in _just _a week before, the new Head Gamemaker, appointed by Bonnie, a protegee of Lewlyn's, that Constantine Fallorne, had insisted on staying there. It is where the Head Gamemaker stays, the old bat insists, with her silver hair and eyes that are always bloodshot from a lack of sleep. Pollux thought Lewlyn had been insane due to being mentally ill or something of that nature, but this Constantine woman, someone he has only spoken to a handful of times, terrifies him even further. She's sweet, doddering, almost reminding Pollux of his mother, but he senses something else hiding behind that warm stare, when she meshes her bony fingers together and grins. He is pretty sure she wears dentures, and he doesn't trust people in their sixties who wear dentures.

Pollux finds the main broadcasting room easy enough, as it marked by a large golden star hanging over the door frame with his name written on it. The room is entirely empty, when he steps inside, as the makeup crew and the directing staff don't show up until usually fifteen minutes to going live, where he'll sit at the desk, in a chair that is no longer capable of spinning, hair donned up in some goofy fashion - he decides months in advance on the hairstyle, trying to choose the one that leaves him looking the most manly, for perceptions matter in show business - and discuss the batch of new recruits. He is there even earlier than that, by another fifteen minutes. Sometimes, in years past, he has arrived earlier, but that had been for an entirely different purpose, simply liking the peace and quiet when he has the entire studio to himself. This is different.

The Master of Ceremonies takes the package from out underneath his suit, placing it on the closest desk. There are five rows of computers, several cameras standing in their onyx color, statues with a beady halcyon stare, judging his every move silently. Wires run in a tangle on the floor, slithering snakes of various colors, and if he stares at them for long enough, sometimes they do move and lash out, with their venomous bite, but the bite pales in comparison to Bonnie's. He figures it to be the brandy in his drink that wears him down, where his ribcage expands and he is given stupid ideas that never work, building to some higher purpose that never comes. He looks around the room, trying to locate the one singular security camera, as again, protection for the Interviewer of the Hunger Games hadn't been a position Calhoun felt needed to be extremely dire. It is focused on the desk, and not on the remainder of the room. _Perfect._

He unwraps the package, a lump forming in his throat as he stands back up to maintain his posture. There are two items that had been wrapped up for him, one being a DVD, given to him by Rennie first, where the silence passes over them when the token is given. Pollux doesn't have to guess what is in there, what is on that disc; he knows, he knows full and well what's on there. The other package, which he has to unwrap as it is also bundled up in a wad of tissues, is a shard of glass, something that causes a breath in Pollux's throat to hitch. He has a plan, or rather Rennie's plan, which he reads over and over again, as the avox typed it out on the tablet. The third item he needs is one he didn't have to bring with him, but rather sitting in the corner of the room. A fire extinguisher, its coat of paint glistening cardinal in the lowly dimmed lights, and he shudders.

Pollux knows that there is only so much he can do before reaching a breaking point. This might be it, but if he doesn't do what Rennie has asked him to do, he'll never be given the chance again. He can feel it, bristling over his skin, the tension, a cackle of electricity that makes all the hair on his arms stand straight up. It could end up with him beheaded, or thrown in front of a train, throat slit, shot in the heart... but he owes it to himself. He owes it to Rennie, to do this. He owes it to Lewlyn, who is buried with the violin that she had given her brother, for he is incapable of holding onto it any longer. He owes it to Calhoun especially, a man who had always, _always _put the good of Panem before himself, always honoring his wife, and Bonnie killed him. She killed him because she wanted the power for herself, and Pollux cannot be a bystander any longer.

Twelve of the computers are already on, an intern who must've come in when the sun just peeks over the sky with its reaching halcyon bands and fiery breath. Pictured on the screens are the live feeds of the Reapings, all twelve, in district order, and although the screens aren't gigantic, Pollux can see the escorts standing in the center of the stage, the town mayors behind them, and the victors standing off to the side. He recognizes some of the faces, like Kevia and Lance of District 1, and Criston Pellock, a victor from District 6 who won the 92nd Hunger Games at thirteen, standing sharply on stage. The cameras are now angled to behind the escorts, Pollux unable to determine who is who as most of them are wearing wigs and powdered faces and wearing _too much lace,_ God have mercy on their souls. The camera is pointed towards the large screens always positioned on either side of the Justice Building at this time. The propaganda video on the Hunger Games.

He goes to the main frame computer in front of the twelve, which all connect to it via a complicated wire system that he is not going to try and figure out. Booting it on, which it already had been due to the intern's action, Pollux reaches for the disc, pressing the ejector button, which then juts out the placeholder for the disc. The propaganda footage is running in another window, but as Pollux has done this before in needing to give emergency broadcasts that would disrupt daily scheduled programming, he is not new to the system, fortunately. He places the disc into the slot, closing it shut. A pop up window appears on the screen, asking if he wants to override the footage. Should he click yes, through the system of wires, the reel on why winning the Hunger Games is important will be overridden by the video on the disc, and all the districts will see its contents.

Pollux takes a deep breath, hands shaking against the counter. If he does this, there is no going back.

He shakes his head.

_Fuck it._

He moves the mouse over the alert, clicking yes. There's a grinding noise coming from the computer, as the data is overrun. The Reapings would be being broadcast all across the city, as Calhoun and Bonnie used to watch them in their mansion by themselves before getting ready to greet the tributes on the trains. On the twelve reaping screens, there is a sound of static, though Pollux himself cannot hear it back in the Capitol. The propaganda footage seems to stutter, and the general mood on the stages, likewise for all of them, escorts, victors, and mayors are looking up with puzzlement, matches for all twelve districts. One second there's an image of a father holding up his little daughter, and then the next, Rennie's face replaces that, with his emerald eyes, and roaring kissed by fire locks. Pollux nearly leaps in his seat as the footage begins to play, the avox introducing himself. It is general confusion on stage, a few of the mayors jumping in the escort's faces, but Pollux has to move on.

Pollux races over to the fire extinguisher, heaving it off of the wall, holding it in his hand. The thing is a bit heavier than he expects, he almost dropping it. He struggles it all the way over to the nearest window, they being on the third floor, which backs up against one of the Capitol's many parks, covered in trees and foliage that from the height he is at, it will be impossible to simply spot anyone hiding underneath the canopy. Pollux holds the fire extinguisher sideways, taking a deep breath, as the footage back in the districts is now Rennie revealing to all twelve districts about Madam President Bonnie murdering her husband, killing the victor from Ten, and the death of his own sister... chaos simply erupts on the stage, and Pollux drowns in it all. He smashes the fire extinguisher into the window, it shattering in a rain of glass shards that clink to the sidewalk. The moment the window shatters, an alarm goes off, which is to alert the Peacekeeper guard stationed outside.

A few alarms begin to blare on the walls, causing the room to be covered in a vermillion hue, an alternating blip of shadow and blood that falls on his face. Pollux races over to the shard of glass, holding it in his hands as tightly as he can. He hisses at the pain, starting to cut his arm open, and now the alarm begins to blare, while the lights flood on and off. He can hear, just slightly, on the staircase leading up the studio room, that the Peacekeeper guard is almost there, and he'll be busting in at any second. Pollux closes his eyes shut, breathing in and out. This is the part that Rennie described to be the hardest, where it relies on him the most. He hates bleeding, he hates pain, getting wounded, the worst having been a scraped knee when he had been maybe five or six. Pollux inhales a shrill scream, and then slices the shard of glass in a straight line down his forearm on the left, and then, as quickly as he could, dashes a quick two slashes across his cheek.

His face is warm with blood, it oozing out of the five wounds from his hands, arms, and face. The Peacekeeper guard bursts in, pistol out, a second right behind him with an automatic rifle, both weapons black, almost invisible in the shadows. Pollux can barely hear himself think over the sirens, and he stares at the guards in horror, blood seeping from his body. The one with the pistol rushes towards him, as Pollux collapses into a different chair from the one he had been sitting in, to ensure a lack of suspicion. The Peacekeepers resemble demons in the dark, a sharp contrast to their blizzard white uniforms. Pollux feels woozy, body on fire as he kicks the now copper stained shard of glass away from him. This is working, and he can't believe it.

"He was in here!" Pollux cries out to the Peacekeeper, grabbing at him, smearing blood all over the uniform. "I was coming in early like I always do and Rennie was already in here! He broadcasted his message to the districts. I tried to stop him and he fought me off with a shard of glass..." he points weakly to it, and the Peacekeeper reacts a bit violently to the sudden touch. "He broke out through the window with the fire extinguisher, and I think he went running towards Rodney Park!" and Pollux then slumps into the guard's arms, faking to faint.

He is nearly dropped onto the floor in surprise as the other guard rushes over to the window, gun trained out through the hole, scanning, searching, but of course, he won't find anything. He won't find anyone running away, when the criminal is sitting right there with them. The security camera in the corner never moves, as Pollux has kept his eye on it the entire time, even in his frenzied state. The guard from the window returns back to the center of the room, affirming a negative, no target in sight, Rennie must've gotten away. The guard whose arms he is currently in radios a medical evac, and Pollux smiles faintly to himself, teeth glimmering copper, while he is bandaged up, and the cloth dyes a sickening putrid shade of crimson while the alarms continue to spin, and blare and warn.

Pollux glances over at the screens of the districts, and it seems order has been established, the projection screens simply knocked over, Peacekeepers pointing their weapons at tributes, but on the District 1 screen, there's Lance Viel propped up on Kevia Janelle's shoulder, head split open, looking woozy. The consensus is the same however, confusion and disorder, and Pollux cannot help but smile to himself. However, riding that, is a single frame of doubt, and he wishes the doubt hadn't been there, but if he wasn't thinking it, Pollux knew that it would make him seem as insane as doddery Constantine Fallorne, with those bony hands. He's done it, he's done what Rennie has asked for, to broadcast his message live, to show not just the Capitol, who certainly would struggle believing it, but the districts...

"_I've done what you've asked, Rennie," _Pollux thinks wearily to himself. "_What now?"_

* * *

_**Tribute List (Boy - Girl)**_

District 1: **Cyril Barther **[_Submitted by thorne98_] / **Satin Spinel **[_Submitted by Mistycharming_]

District 2: **Aris Lindel **[_Submitted by grimbutnotalways_] / **Maren Johnson **[_Submitted by Crashed Ice24_]

District 3: **Tach Andon **[_Submitted by Audmirable_] / **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 4: **Jules Harper **[_Submitted by DMonkey1607_] / **Anahita Cascade **[_Submitted by Reader Castellan_]

District 5: **Seth Cables **[_Submitted by Nemris_] / **Sophiana Delarosa **[_Submitted by santiago poncini20_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara** [_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 7: **Roanoke Arkus **[_Submitted by Guesttwelve_] / **Sage Dagoba **[_Submitted by AlexFalTon_]

District 8: **Cambric Vogel **[_Submitted by dyloccupy_] / **Magdalena Bertha **[_Submitted by Tiger outsider_]

District 9: **Jason Lacey **[_Submitted by ilvidis_] / **Audhild Olthono **[_Submitted by 66asmvr_]

District 10: **Rodric Oxford **[_Submitted by Alecxias_] / **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

District 11: **Vanya Vasiliev **[_Submitted by TheMayflyProject_] / **Zola Taonga **[_Submitted by Apple1230_]

District 12: **Mirek Bosco **[_Submitted by curiousclove_] / **Bloom Estrada **[_Submitted by LordShiro_]

* * *

**Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #6: The Spy, where Pollux has stepped the hell up and has gotten Rennie's message of Bonnie's evil actions not just out to the Capitol, but out to the districts, and in this process, shifted blame off of himself, had the bravery to injure himself in the process, and all around, this is the kick-off to the story ladies and gentlemen.**

**In other news, here our tributes! I have to say, I massively enjoyed the process of selecting this cast, because I do not know how often you see SYOTS with a full tribute cast where each one belongs to a different submitter. Races were tight for competition, and I did move only one single tribute to a different spot, that being Miss Bloom Estrada, but beyond that, everyone else got the spots they submitted for, and I am very excited for this cast to join in on the Capitol's chaos, as I'll say this as a warning, Bonnie and Rennie's warring schemes will affect them too, and perhaps in more ways than one. I have eight returning submitters from Sheep Led to Slaughter [Audmirable, Reader Castellan, Santiago, ilvidis, Alecxias, curiousclove, Shiro] and if you are curious on my SYOT process, don't hesitate to talk to them, for they'll have some insight.**

**Next chapter, #7, is going to be the backstory of two different tributes that I have selected at random, while Chapter #8 will be two separate reapings for two individual tributes, while #9 will have my traditional process of the train rides. I hope you all do please review, not just on your excitement, but on the chapter contents too, as this is something I have been holding out to for a LONG time. I am so excited to get this story underway, and I will see you all soon with Chapter #7: Their Dark Hearts, our first tribute introductions. I love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	7. Their Dark Hearts (Intros I)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #7: Their Dark Hearts. This is our very first tribute introductory chapter, where we are meeting two tributes I chose at random from the selection, and the same will be for the next five chapters after that as well. I am so very excited to get this show on the road, so bear with me as we go along! For this chapter you are going to be introduced to Jules Harper, the District 4 Male by DMonkey1606, and Ciphra Longsdale, the District 3 Female, by Flammifera, and what these tributes are doing on the morning of the reaping. Next chapter is going to focus specifically on two reapings of two different tributes, but for now, please enjoy Chapter #7: Their Dark Hearts.**

* * *

_~ I walked out to the Lord's tabernacle, hoping he'd bless me, but instead, I was cursed._

**_Jules Harper: District 4 Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

Something's wrong. The padding isn't feeling correct today. Usually, as seventeen year-old Jules Harper has this down to a science, the padding is tight and restrictive around the chest area, keeping the typical expansion rather stiff, but it feels much more free floating today, and he's worried. Everyone on stage will know, for sure, if something rips free, and he'll be thrown off the stage, probably beaten by the Peacekeepers, and much worse, as lying is a serious offense in District 4. If everyone in the world knew his secret, Jules couldn't volunteer for the Hunger Games, couldn't become the victor everyone wanted him to be.

He pushes a strand of hair back over the ears, it starting to curl, despite him always keeping it cut short to ensure no one mistakes him to be a female, the dark uniform hiding the little femininity that remains, the femininity that he has crushed out of him, for it is not who he is. The Academy has learned of it, in its loosest form, as Jules approaches the head trainer, begging to be roped in on the male side of the pens, while they stand there like lambs for the slaughter. How lucky those other kids must feel, the ones that didn't join the Academy, the ones that didn't aspire to be more than themselves, incapable of seeing how the Capitol had blessed them so. He finds it disgusting, to be an absolute disgrace.

Jules tucks his stomach in some, and his chest expands, but does not inflate, which is good. The mirror he is standing in front of is spray-painted silver along the edges, to where some of the paint splatters onto the mirror itself, where the eyes would be, and there's a hint of silver now hiding among his mahogany tint, and that fleck of silver highlights the olive shades of his arms and neck. If there is another thing he could change about himself, Jules hopes to be taller, as being 5'1, for a man, is unbelievably short, and especially for a Career. Carrion Bastion had been so tall, torn up by the Capitol machinations. Jules finds it extremely silly, actually, extremely stupid, but he wouldn't be bold enough to say it to Carrion's face had the guy still been alive and not shot up with bullet holes.

He could've watched his boyfriend die, painful sure, but it meant he had been still alive, unable to understand how the Capitol extended their hand so he could feed from it, but instead Carrion chose to bite, and look where it got him. "Dead..." Jules whispers to himself, fingers digging into his back, trying to straighten his posture. "Dead, dead, dead." When he wins the Hunger Games, he wouldn't be 'dead', but alive, living vicariously, drowning in seas of velvet and frolicking through fields of diamonds where the shards drag against the crook of his elbow in a tickling fashion. He could move the Harper family into an even larger house, as the Victors Village house will still be too small for all the possessions he'll want and nap in the Capitol after Bonnie gives her favor towards him.

Carrion is - _was, _Jules thinks snidely, _was _\- shortsighted and couldn't see the full picture, but Jules can see it painted in front of him entirely. A person trapped in a cage, snarling at the bars, hoping to be released, to be freed from the prison that holds him back, as he's trapped in the wrong body and will do anything to break free from that, to go to the gender that he _is, _not what he once _was, _as his sex doesn't define who he is. Jules knows his family has money, but not enough to fully proceed with the transition. When he's interloping with the boys fully, then he'll be respected, something he has been trying to earn his whole life.

Jules's eyes darken momentarily, stepping back away from the vanity. He believes there to be good in everyone, even that silly new victor Valencia Shale, who has denied the passions in her hearts, where she is not a true Career for she has doubts, and doubts lead to death by forgetting how the system works. There is good in the bullies that kick him in the side at the playground when he's ten, trying to play ball like the others, or the jeers some of the fellow trainees give him by slapping him on the butt while prepping his stance for a fight, and even the one who stole away what had been most precious to him, ripping it from him root and stem and then denying the pleasure in the end, because he _lied. _

"I didn't lie..." he says, squeezing his eyes shut, stepping back away from the mirror even further, as the silver shine is starting to darken, corroding the metal away. "I just wanted to be something else and you couldn't handle it..."

He turns from the mirror as he cannot stand to look at himself anymore, to see the truth hiding in the curves that do not fully disappear no matter how hard he binds his upper body. There's positivity to be had, and what can't be solved with a good breakfast, as he has yet to have it, and his parents would march upstairs should he delay any longer, chastisement on the tip of their tongues. A Career does not jeopardize himself, he must be prepared for whatever comes his way, and skipping meals would not help the muscle mass, it'd deteriorate and then so would the charlatan act.

The steps are hard and clunky on the undersides of his feet as he makes his way down to the first floor, hand gliding alongside the bannister. The bannister, approved by his mother as a stylistic choice, decides to have it painted copper, given an almost bronze luster, and when the sun shines directly through their glass paned front door, the rays pass directly over the banister, and it comes alive as he touches it, a low hum underneath his fingertips. The rays pass through the banister, causing the whole staircase to glow like a marble Christmas tree, and onto the sundial that sits in the foyer. 9 A.M.

A lump forms in Jules's throat. The reaping is in just a couple of hours, and although he has been through them five times now, soon to be six, there is always something apprehensive about the whole ordeal. District 4 hasn't had a victor in many years, but perhaps he could be the first to spawn a legacy. He isn't afraid to go into the Hunger Games, to stare and combat death directly in the face, and he isn't even scared of dying, but he is most certainly scared of being a disappointment. Standing in line with the other guys, where he is afraid they are all judging him and trying to determine his legitimacy, it does not compare to physically raising your hand and shouting out those two famed words that change a guaranteed six tributes' lives year after year, and none of them make it home.

"But I will," Jules says with confidence, though his body image doesn't detail that, as his shoulders are slouched - "_Posture, dear," the guy tells him, a finger placed under his chin, as he stares back at such unbelievable beauty and familiar dark eyes, where his throat is laced in a ruby smile, holes in his chest that are still bleeding, and where Jules hid in a corner after watching him die in the Games _\- and there's tension building in his hips. He goes to sit at the kitchen counter, which is a see-through glass pane that is has inscriptions of Latin phrasing on the sides.

He knows it's Latin just from the way the words are ordained, but he does not know what they mean, and his parents don't either, and none of them have bothered to check. Jules expects his parents will one day get on him for not being a prepared victor in knowing Latin - "It wasn't part of my studies!" he'd protest, while holding onto that silver bracelet the man gave him - after his ascension to the inner Capitol circle. He is their only daughter - _"Son," Jules corrects the thought vehemently, "Their only son..._" - and his parents have never attempted at having any more children, so this is his one shot to do them proud. One day, when he's wizened and gray, surrounded by loved ones, it'll be his championing moment, that he peaked at seventeen from winning the Hunger Games.

Jules reaches across the glass, minding himself to not press his fingers into the pane, for an apple. Fingerprints means evidence, which means he's tampered with the beauty that the Capitol has defined and built and given to him, and he wouldn't desecrate such a gift. It is how his parents made their fortune, as his father impresses some Gamemaker with a trap idea on how some fisherman catch barracuda gives that official an idea, which is how the victor of the 90th Hunger Games comes to be, and the money rains down from the heavens, they having more than they can handle, more than they know what to do with.

Practically all of it will go to the operation, when Jules is eighteen and has the full freedom to decide what to do with his own financials, no longer requiring mommy and daddy do his dirty work for him. All he does have to do now, at least for the time being, is look over at them, blink his eyes twice in a sweet manner that makes him want to vomit, and all of a sudden he has a new gold watch sitting on his nightstand. Something Jules has been heavily self-conscious with, as he's gotten older, is knowing that not everyone is as fortunate in their day to day lives. Some people must toil the breadline, or lose their children to the Hunger Games on some silly mistake, and they never recover, and so he tries to be modest about what he has and what he does with it.

It is all simple rules, really, such as not wearing the gold watch to the Academy training sessions, as if the watch is broken or stolen by some cretin in four days-old clothes, Jules will want to break their nose for daring to damage a good of his, but then he'll turn that onto himself, on his hypocrisy and silliness, as he chose to do something foolish. That is something Carrion Bastion didn't do, to hide his affluency, while there are five vodkas sitting in him and he is stumbling about the Center, laughing, giggling, and pressing his lips to Jules, still unsure if that had been an accident or not.

However, Jules knows, when it is time for the Games to begin, and he is to stand on the metal plate that holds his life in the balance, the gloves will come off. His affluency that the Capitol has given to him will be shown to the world, to show what their finest treatments have given him, as they've given someone who didn't have a purpose a new sense in life, a way out to their true self, and in that gift, the ability to unlock their truest potential... a fighter, a killer, a player that is good at the game, and a game where he is the most prepared for it.

He bites into the apple, tearing off the skin, a few droplets of juice dripping onto his chin, which he wipes away with the back of his hand.

Jules is ready to play the game, and anyone who'll dare to steal away his dreams for himself doesn't deserve to live in his book, and unfortunately, as nice as he'd like to try and be, Jules Harper knows in the deepest crevice of his heart, that is what will get him to where he needs to be. Sometimes the heart needs to turn dark so one can evolve, so one can proceed to their highest form.

Jules has seen his dark heart, and he knows what it is capable of.

Panem is not. The other tributes aren't.

* * *

**_Ciphra Longsdale: District 3 Female P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

The shadows are playing tricks with her. In the twenty minutes she has spent lying on her bed, arms bunched into fists underneath her chin, as she does not want to go and join her family for their celebratory breakfast, as she's going to be past her last reaping in just a few hours, the corner of her room where the sunlight falls on the least has bloomed into a meadow, full of violets and daises and little sparrows that chirp in the sounds of heaven. However, she doesn't want to leave, for the shadows call to her, in a that singsong voice, where the birds flutter and fly away from the corner, and perch themselves on the top of her dresser, which is not much, but a dresser all the same.

She smiles to herself, drawing the covers up. They've just been washed, smelling of lavender and her mother's perfume, which dances on the edges of the linens, splashing in dark, noticeable puddles. Eventually, if she were to give it another five or ten minutes, Veracity will walk up to her door, knock heavily against it, almost break the door, scare her half to death, and cause the birds to fly away in terror, but she's willing to allow herself the peace and quiet. Last night had been exhausting, where she and her brother stayed up through the hours of the night, sharing a bottle of gin between themselves, sitting on the roof, feet dangling precariously over the ledge. Their parents would kill them if they found out, as her brother is not of legal age to drink yet, and she's going about breaking the rules.

"_What are rules designed for if they are meant to not be broken?" she asks her father once, he bent over a part of Veracity's wiring, and he looks up at her through his wire-framed spectacles and sneers at the question. Her father doesn't appreciate smartasses. _

Ciphra Longsdale, eighteen years-old, about to survive into adulthood with her head firmly on her shoulders, cannot wait for the morning to be over. Her parents will extend their rigid rules just slightly - _slightly, _warns Veracity, with his eyes bulging out of his head, halcyon shimmering beams from a lighthouse on a stony shore, _only slightly, Ciphra _\- and allow the entire family to drink, as one child has escaped the cruelty of the Hunger Games. Her brother has another two years to go after today, so she can sense the animosity hiding in his eyes, though he tries to subdue those temptations when they lock gazes for a moment after the announcement.

She can hear, just barely on the staircase, a loud _thunk, _of heavy machinery, a cogged iron foot slamming onto the first panel, and the creaking of gears as metallic hands reach for the banister to hold onto. Ciphra throws off the covers, sighing to herself, getting out of bed, before pausing and hissing in pain as her feet touch the carpet. A hand goes to her lower back immediately, the zone flaring up in pain, a searing white hotness on the corners of her vision as the muscles protest in agony. It is something incurable, she is certain, as the two doctors she's seen have given her said diagnosis, something about an anterior pelvic tilt as she sits in front of a computer all day long doing the Capitol's dirty work. Her parents did the dirty work at one point, but they've retired instead, and have shafted the duty onto her.

The arrival has reached the top of the steps, making its presence known by, as Ciphra predicts, practically throwing the door open, but she expects it. Her heart does not jump at the sight, for Veracity isn't another human being that could frighten her, not in the same way her father can commandeer a room with one glance, one firm clearing of his throat, but in an even colder way. Veracity can't truly emote like she can, she cannot picture a fantasy onto him like she can for the banister, or the corner of the room. Veracity, her father's creation, a robot standing about four feet off the ground, made entirely of scrap metal, painted an assortment of shades of Panemian red and gold, is in the doorway, head directed at the door he had thrown open.

"_If you are designing Veracity to be male," Ciphra asks, one day, leaning over her father's work bench, long black hair smearing in the ink of his calculations, which earns a dogged glare, "Does that mean you'll give him a-"_

_The sharp look, at which her father is an expert of, silences her. _

Ciphra now imagines what it would like for Veracity to have a metallic male body part extending from the said area where one would go. Veracity does not wear clothes, as they are not willing to give away any of theirs to something that isn't a human being, for it would be torn up by the body movements, which are not the perfected actions that her father had dreamed of. Sometimes, when Veracity moves, a droplet or two of oil will splatter onto the floor, and her imagination takes over when staring at it, that it is now a puddle for insects to play in, and where the oil is edible, tasting of rainwater and salt.

She bows to the robot, which bows back at her, given an A.I, but that had been done by someone in District 6, a victor of some sort that had been visiting District 3 on their victory tour, and not a victor from District 3. "Good morning, Veracity," she smiles at the robot, and she moves over to the wardrobe, throwing it open. Her father, after retiring from being one to help install Capitol security systems and street defenses, turns to a life of creation, turning pieces of burnt and rusted pieces of metal into beings that mimic mankind, and Veracity had been one of many prototypes, a prototype that Ciphra has learned to live with. She imagines a squirrel running atop Veracity's clunky, large shoulders and sitting there, chittering, tail wagging back and forth, causing Ciphra to giggle.

Veracity's voice is an iron grate being hit with a cheese grater, if Ciphra had to give the tone and inflection a style. "Your presence has been missed at breakfast, Miss Longsdale." Always so polite, always so polite.

"I just need a moment," she says, wrenching open the wardrobe, dropping her nightgown to the floor, leaving her top naked to the world. The windows are closed, luckily for her, as living next door is a guy her age that if the curtains are open, loves to try and sneak into her bedroom to get a chance to see Veracity. She has no idea why he simply doesn't invite himself in at the _front door _like most normal human beings, but he's a guy, and Ciphra doesn't understand guys, so she'll give up with him. Veracity looks away at the revealing, and Ciphra is glad, for a brief moment, that her father never gave the robot a fully functioning manhood. "It's been a rough night, as you know."

"Certainly, Miss Longsdale."

"You don't have to call me that, you know," she corrects him, picking out a periwinkle dress, long and would cover her knees, which are bit bruised from kneeling on the rooftop, the hard stone curves digging into her knee. "Ciphra is just fine. You can disobey my father every once in awhile," and Ciphra straightens out the dress. The dress had been from a sale, for extremely cheap, and she wanted something for her seventeenth birthday, and voila, her mother found the perfect item for her to have. For how _darling _she'd look in it. She wanted something prettier, that she had found across the street, but extra money went to the power bill that month, and Ciphra knew that beggars couldn't be choosers.

"Well, your presence is still missed," Veracity replies stiffly, even seeming to lock up as he says it. He bows again, this time a bit more slowly, and then makes his trek back out the door downstairs to rejoin the family. She appreciates his company, but again, he doesn't make her nervous. He wouldn't be able to make her nervous, for his flesh isn't the same as hers, it doesn't bleed the same, doesn't rip and tear apart the same.

She looks back at the window, which is locked, curtains drawn. Ciphra is certain the guy over next door, who she has only met once or twice, never having a full conversation with him, rather lanky, with lustrous dark hair and emerald eyes that signal of wildfire and freshly cut grass. Is he out of the reaping age yet? She's seen him before, in the middle of the crowd, last year, but loses him. He had just moved in a few weeks prior to that, some rich family from another part of time, richer than her, as apparently the kid is a genius in biology or something. Ciphra isn't quite sure.

When the reaping is over, she'll head to his place and introduce herself. In their section of the neighborhood, for having some money - not a lot, and certainly not the most of those who dwell in District 3 - she, her brother, and the guy next door are the only kids on the block, and she's spent an entire year avoiding him, they never being together in the same place unless it is him trying to break in and get a look of Veracity.

"Veracity would probably kill him..." she chuckles to herself, finishing tying the knot that keeps the periwinkle dress to her body. She can imagine it now, the poor thing stepping into the upstairs attic window, where Veracity goes to sleep, a clawed hand grabbing him around the throat, and tearing it, ripping it to shreds, oh how she can imagine it, with the scarlet running down pale skin, hers even paler than that, nearly shining the same as a peal of moonlight, or a crushed hailstone, and his screams vibrating along the wall, all as Ciphra commands Veracity to destroy him.

She stumbles away from the mirror, directly into the foot of her bed, which flares up the pain in her lower back again. Veracity is all the way down at the other end of the house now, it'd take too long for him to come in a fix her back, which she stabilizes by getting back to her feet fully. Ciphra steps back in front of the mirror. There are no blemishes on her skin, no sharp lines dashing across cheek bones, stabbing in on a tender muscle. She isn't bleeding, as which she expects to be, or to have the metallic hand actually clawing at _her _throat, where Veracity doesn't listen to her because she said that is okay to disobey a master every once in awhile.

Ciphra inhales a deep breath, arms shaking as she presses them firmly against the foot of the bed, resting on the jutted out piece of wood. She cannot believe that her mind went down that pathway. She has always had an active imagination, for sure, but nothing to that extreme! She could picture him, the nameless guy who she knows nothing about, and see him lying there, bleeding out, as her heart roars in her chest, blood flowing at screaming in her ears...

The girl rubs her forehead, sighing. She simply has to survive through the day, and the rest of her life will be smooth sailing, skipping away from Death's beckoning talons that'd ensnare her around the arm. There are some things in this world she'll never understand, and that is one of them. Ciphra looks back at her reflection in the mirror, tentatively, unsure of what she sees staring back at her.

A stranger.

A complete and total stranger with a dark heart thinking of death and destruction and disorder.

Ciphra Longsdale has no idea how dark her heart could get, and what could be brought out of that darkness.

The 101st Hunger Games awaits.

* * *

**There we are ladies and gentlemen! That was Chapter #7: Their Dark Hearts, of Bombs and Bullets, where we have met our first two tributes: Jules Harper, the D4M, and Ciphra Longsdale, the D3F, created by DMonkey1607 and Flammifera respectively. Let me know what you think of them, I'm curious for your thoughts. I haven't physically written a new tribute in a little short of ten months, since Sheep Led to Slaughter, and honestly, this has been a fun experience to get back to again, but I just don't see myself writing SYOTS forever. **

**Moving on, the next chapter, Chapter #8: Their Broken Minds, will feature another two tributes that will be selected entirely by random - one male and one female, as I prefer balance - via the RNG process, where a male tribute is the odd digits of 1-24 and the female tribute is the even digits of 1-24, so Jules and Ciphra had been 7 and 6 respectively; I won't know who they are until I decide start writing this chapter, just to make it a bit more fun. Please review, as they are wonderful and lovely, and I did an all individual cast for a reason! I cannot wait to see you all again for the next chapter. I love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	8. Their Broken Minds (Intros II)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #8: Their Broken Minds. This is the second chapter revealing tributes, and I have another two characters for you today, and they are the D5F and the D10M. Sophiana Delarosa, by Santiago poncini, and Rodric Oxford, by Alexcias. I am doing two different reapings, one for the female tribute, and the other for the male tribute, so ya'll can see how I write reapings, as that was something I skipped over pretty much in its entirety for Sheep Led to Slaughter, but this is because I abhor the reaping phase and do not wish to dwell very long in it. Hope you all enjoy Chapter #8: Their Broken Minds.**

* * *

_~ I walked out to the Lord's chamber, hoping he'd bless me, but instead, I was tormented._

**_Sophiana Delarosa: District 5 Female P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

The air around the town square is silent, a deafening silence, if that is even possible. After the footage of the ex-avox, Rennie Davis plays, the town mayor takes the microphone from the escort, all of District 5 watching this charade happen, and before he can utter another word, there's an uproar from some parent in the crowd, and from some eighteen year old's, the males in particular begin to scream insults at the escort, a frumpy looking woman with straight brown hair that glistens like fresh chocolate, a woman who cannot be taller than 4'5, shirking underneath all the accusations.

Sixteen year-old Sophiana Delarosa knows she is supposed to be paying attention to the possible insurrections happening on stage, as their three victors stand in silence, mouths dropped open at the film that played, while the mayor practically yells at the crowd for peace and quiet, but she isn't listening. Her head is looking up at the sky, trying to imagine what the clouds would look like in a more appetizing manner... what if the clouds were to be painted in a cotton candy pink? How would they taste, then, if she were to take a bite out of one?

Part of Sophiana's mind is screaming at her to stay in the moment, as that is what her sister, Yolanda, would be telling her by poking her in the ribs, even though that'd be hypocritical of her, as that is what she'd be doing to, just a few rows up from her, separated by only a year in age. However, it is the situation itself that forces her into that bubble, as her mind dances back and forth on being in reality or drifting away to eat the cotton candy clouds. If she is to pull back up on the left and right sleeves of her dress, black and opaque for a reason, Sophiana would reveal to all those around her the results of shouting, the shouting that is emblazoned in her memory, stuck like an insect in amber, unable to move past that.

A few Peacekeepers click their batons open, and form a line in front of the stage, as a few of the eighteen year-olds try rushing forward... to do _what _exactly, she's not sure, but she isn't even paying attention so why does it matter? One kid gets clobbered right across the temple, and the way he falls back onto the cobblestones, hitting the side of light pole to then plummet onto the ground surely breaks his jaw, as that elicits a few shrieks from some onlookers, for that boy surely broke his jaw, and a Peacekeeper drags him off, presumably to be thrown in prison or arrested. Sophiana is just jealous as that means he just got himself out of being reaped, the lucky ass.

Another boy tries to tackle one of the Peacekeepers, but a few guys from the eighteen year section hold him back by the hood of his jacket, for it is a surprisingly chill morning in District 5, but Sophiana doesn't care about the cold all that much. The mayor swipes the microphone from the escort, that gaudy woman who is in way over her head, and he, the mayor, with his balding head, a ringlet of gray wisps that make the top of his skull look the craters of the moon, stands in the center of the stage.

"Citizens!" he booms. "Order!" That causes everyone to jump, including Sophiana, which sends something flying out of the underside of one of the sleeves of her dress. She shrieks out, scrambling forward some, knocking some other sixteen year-old girls out of the way, seizing the four pronged leaf that had flown off of its hinge on the inside of her dress. She holds the leaf tight to her chest while the mayor prances around on the stage, face stern and pent up in anger, his brow so red she could see it from her spot, which had been a good distance to the stage. "We will have order!" he bellows again.

"But what about-" an eighteen year-old shouts, the same one that had tried to advance on the Peacekeepers before being kept back by his friends. Said Peacekeepers brandish their batons again, one holding out a billy club that would make getting swat with the baton feel like a ladybug tickling their arm. That causes the kid to shut up, and for good riddance, as Sophiana's head was about to start hurting if the kid kept prattling on.

The mayor sighs heavily, and the creases in his brow vanish back underneath the veil of pasty pale flesh. "Now, we'll see who was behind that disturbance that just occurred, and everything else will go as planned," he turns back to the escort. "Magnolia, if you please," and motions her back to the microphone, with the two bowls sitting on either side of the stand, with all those white slips.

Sophiana has heard of being handed a pink slip when you are fired from your job, but she knows that it does pale in comparison to having some draw your _white _slip from the bowl. It is her fifth reaping, and she has never seen anyone get their slip drawn rejoice after it has been revealed that it is theirs. Magnolia, the escort, with her chocolate greased hair, and a dress that has to have been washed a thousand times more than necessary due to the way it is furled and curling in at the edges, like a wilted magnolia - Sophiana applauds herself on the back for that little relationship, which had been entirely accidental. Everything about her is accidental. - steps back up to her post, clearing her throat. She folds her hands over another, though Sophiana can see the fingers twitch towards the bowls. Just so eager to draw the names, so eager to get to the bloodshed.

"Thank you, Mr. Mayor," she starts, but Sophiana has already spaced out again, going back to thinking of cotton candy clouds and what the tea is going to taste like when she gets back home, as her and Yolanda sit on their back porch and hold tiny porcelain cups with their pinkies, giggling together, before rolling around in the grass. Sophiana wants Magnolia to shut up, as her throat is getting a bit parched, and she is pretty certain she cannot flag down a Peacekeeper and ask him to give her a glass of water. "Now," Magnolia continues, straightening out her dress as best as she can, "We can start. Ladies and gentlemen, you are all here for the honor of being chosen for the 101st year of the Hunger Games, to represent District 5 and bring glory home. As usual, ladies first," she enunciates her statement with a bob of the head.

Although she knows it won't be her, Sophiana sucks in a breath. Getting reaped for the Hunger Games means death, regardless if you're twelve or eighteen, short or the tallest human being on the planet... District 5 does not produce winners. Every girl since she's been an eligible little lamb to be plucked out of the crowd that has been handpicked, those little girls do not come back the same. They do not return with a bouquet of flowers nestled in their right arm, or with a cute, shiny, carnation pink ribbon in their hair. They come back in wooden boxes, skin bleached white, eyes shut - those eyes will never open again - and a random fragrance of the Capitol's choosing that fills the crate stinking up their nakedness.

Magnolia crosses over to the large bowl on her right - the audience's left - and a manicured hand dances around the rim. It is always a show for her, this gaudy woman with a dress that is too wrinkled, and a face that sags too much, to make the teenagers in front of her wait with bated breath. Her pointer finger just barely lips over a piece of paper sticking out of the bunch, and the occupants of the pens all suck their breath in, but the anxiety remains heightened as Magnolia skips over that one, and then plunges her hand into the pile. There's some shuffling about, and then she withdraws her hand from the bucket, a single slip pinned together a small strip of tape holding it in place now trapped in her claws. She crosses back to the microphone, undoes the tape, and takes a second to read the name to herself.

"Sophiana Delarosa!" Magnolia calls out over the crowd, and her voice echoes against the brick walls due to the silence.

For poor Sophiana, she hadn't been paying attention, focused on tying the four pronged leaf back onto the inside of her dress. Her own name echoes against her skull, vibrating until her head burns from the friction. Something snags on the inside of her dress, perhaps her nail hitting the fabric, and the leaf springs free once more, carried by a gust of wind. Her eyes widen, not due to Magnolia, but due to the wind, and she unleashes a scream, perhaps ten seconds after her name is spoken out to the district.

She breaks free from the crowd of girls, but runs in the opposite direction of the stage, after the leaf that leaps free. Sophiana's eyes are burning as tears begin to spill down her cheeks, and due to her rapid movement, the leaf that is tied to the other sleeve rips free as well, that dancing off into the sky. Another scream dislodges itself from her throat, and she collapses onto her knees in the center of the crowd, down both aisles, with every single person in the square watching her. She feels all of their eyes on her, and Sophiana's body seizes up with a coldness unlike the one currently weighing her down.

Firm hands grab at her shoulders, the familiar leather of a Peacekeeper's glove roughly yanking her back, dragging her by the shoulders up to the stage, feet dangling in front of her, the bottom of her shoes scraping up against the brick. She screams and cries the whole way, yelling at someone to go grab the leaves, to go grab the remnants of her home, the home from before, before the amber droplets seized the curtains, and before the cigarette burns mar her thighs in a wasteland of scars and sinew tears that drip of slick oil. Why are the Peacekeepers even holding onto her, she wonders. She simply lost her adornments...

Sophiana is chucked onto the stage, and the moment she looks up at Magnolia, whose face is twisted in an odd look of disgust, her tears burst free even harder. Despite this display of overwrought emotion, no one utters a word. Not one single girl volunteers, not her sister, who stands just twenty or so feet away from the stage, crying as well, but she does not step forward to save her sister. Sophiana stays seated in a huddle on the floor, bunching her black dress up to her chest, balling up the fabric as it becomes damp by her tears.

However, as she does so, she realizes why Magnolia is looking at her in disgust, for she isn't looking at Sophiana in the eyes, but rather at her legs. With a whimper, Sophiana stares down at her own body, and her face flushes scarlet with shame. People would recognize her last name in an instant; Delarosa is marked in a history of plague. Sickness and pestilence echo along the syllables, and as Sophiana immediately brushes her dress down to cover her legs, it is too late. The cameras have already caught them, the way the flesh is a collection of burned circles, crop circles five shades brighter than her lustrous skin tone that connect together in a constellation. The skin looks like it has been pulled back tautly, and a scalding hot frying pan being placed all up and down the length of both of her legs, and she no longer had the darkness of her dress to hide behind.

She balls her tongue up against the roof of her mouth, teeth sliding over the organ slightly, in case she has to clamp down onto it to stop the tears from flowing, but Magnolia has ignored her now, and the whole district stares blankly at her, not even focusing on their escort, but on her, on her and her broken mind.

The Hunger Games may simply devour her.

* * *

**_Rodric Oxford: District 10 Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

He doesn't get nervous all too often, but he supposes he can allow himself that right now, for this instance of time. Seventeen year-old Rodric Oxford sits in one of the cushioned chairs in the corner of the room allocated for him to collect his wits, hands drumming on the fabric of the chair, which hangs loosely off of it, allowing to slip his hands under it instead. He wants to imagine that this is all a dream, but that couldn't be the case, for the elbow in the ribs the boy next to him had given him when he had stood there in his spot, not moving, mouth dropped open in shock, had been real and painful enough.

Feeling the Peacekeeper's hand against the small of his back felt too predatorily for his liking, and Rodric tells the man he can walk up to the stage himself just fine. Standing next to the escort, a youthful man who couldn't be more than twenty-five, with golden hair like the sunflowers out in the meadow, Rodric keeps his gaze up and out somewhere else into the district. They wouldn't capture the moment the tears fall down his face, he wouldn't give them that satisfaction. He is unable to hide the shock in his heart, however, which hammers in his chest like someone pounding a nail into a wooden board. In a hundred-and-one years of the Hunger Games, never _ever, _has an Oxford been reaped to enter the Hunger Games.

"All up until now..." he whispers bitterly to himself. There had been a wicked party he could've gone to tonight, too, had he actually not been picked. As usual, though, as the case goes with District 10 more often than not, there were no volunteers. Last year's case of Hero and Victoria had been an outlier of sorts, one that Rodric had watched, now a pen back, standing with the sixteen year-olds, watching in objectified horror as some idiot _kid _decided to join his bestfriend in the arena.

"They both got murdered for it," Rodric winces at the memory, at Victoria being killed in the shadows, and Hero's throat slit open in a ruby red smile from ear to ear. His fingers continue drumming against the fabric. He wants to stop the drumming, to return to his usual and normal confident self, where he is able to stand up on stage and belt out the entire valley song with four tequilas in his belly, face flustered and flushed, until passing out, twisting his ankle, and plummeting into the barstools. It is illegal for him to drink, still, as the Capitol has ordained that anyone eligible for the Hunger Games shouldn't drink, but that didn't stop the Careers in the arena last year from getting totally wasted around a campfire.

The Oxford family comes from money. Not the old money, the kind that existed in District Ten before the Dark Days, as those families have been eradicated out, killed and hunted down in the woods for their smuggling abilities, but the new money, the money earned by working for a decent wage, breaking the bones in your back to toil the fields and ride the cattle until the cows literally came home. Oxford Ranch sits just a few miles from the outskirts of the District Ten Victors Village, a good hour or so if he were to walk from his home to the town square, like he did this morning, and being the only child left in the Oxford house, that means he takes the walk alone. Rodric doesn't mind, however, the solidarity and the silence are comforting to him. His eyes catch a cardinal that flies by, chirping a happy, melodious tune, or a rabbit that has an extra foot springing out just underneath the ribcage, with several other bunnies hopping after it. There is always something new to explore on the walks to town when he has to go, and it is the journey that matters the most.

His father inherited the ranch from his grandfather, and within ten years of inheriting it, Oxford Ranch is one of the primary ways the Capitol gets their meat products, they being the second best producer, while another ranch halfway across town, on the other side, near the slums of Ten, has a larger amount of acreage to their name. Rodric hates those kids, the kids that belong to that family, for the way they walk around town, noses held high for being the richest family in Ten. At least Rodric can say he belongs to the _second _richest family in District Ten, so there's that.

He looks up, fingers pausing from his drumming, as the door to the outside opens up, and Rodric stills in his movement, half expecting a Peacekeeper to drag him back out to meet his district partner, with her brashness and attitude that has him swallowing every word he'd ever want to say to her dying in the pit of his stomach. Before the District Ten escort can utter his usual greeting, that red haired avox had appeared on screen, and the world collapses for them, so much so that the Peacekeepers had to pull out their guns, firing warning shots at anyone who looked menacing enough.

It is a bombshell to Rodric however. If what the avox had told them had been indeed true - why would an avox lie? Rodric knows just as well as everyone else what they are, with having no tongue... there's a million reasons to fight back - then both District Ten victors, the Merviere brothers, were removed from action: Arizona killed, by being thrown in front of a train - Rodric could picture it clear as day, as he's heard both of their voices before, what Arizona's would sound like before being collided with head on - and Hector placed in a prison cell, they were effectively going without a mentor. No mentor meant a death sentence even worse than the typical, as who'd be there to guide them on their merry way to their deaths? At least with Hector and Arizona there would be someone holding his hand while he jumps off of the tribute plate towards the Cornucopia. Now? He's got to carry his own deadweight.

Order is reined in rather quickly, and luckily, no one is injured - Rodric doubts that other districts were as easily subdued as theirs, but Ten has never a problem state like Twelve with their stained legacy, or other Career districts were the district can feel more pompous than the Capitol themselves - but it does not mean no one got out of the reaping unscathed, as the escort's hand digs into the tub of slips, flesh meshing together with the moving blizzard of paper, and Rodric finds himself making his way to the stage, hoping, _pleading, _that there'd be another idiotic Hero Slade out there for him. No one rides to his rescue.

A familiar wave of blonde, nearly graying hair makes its appearance past the door, Rodric getting to his feet, and in two quick strides, he embraces his mother in a hug. She smells of hickory and dust and ginseng, where she presses his face against hers, her fingers getting lost in the wild tumbleweed curls of his. The Peacekeeper on the outside closes the door, but for some reason, the man has his helmet off, and Rodric gets a quick look at the man's sharp profile, with his jaw line that could cut diamonds, and those liquidous sapphire eyes, but he breaks his gaze away for a bit, as he's sure he's staring, and his mother retracted from their hug.

She presses a hand against his face, her fingers cold, his skin warm and bristling underneath the touch. "Your father apologizes that he couldn't be here. He had to feed the cows, and he has to take that hour walk home..." he nods against the touch. "He sends you his love and his strength, the strength that is already in you," she squeezes his shoulders, he nearly a foot taller than she is.

"Thanks, Mom," he says sweetly, hugging her again. There is no longer a view of that attractive Peacekeeper, which Rodric's heart flares at for an instance, but he does not dwell on it; there are much more important things to dwell on in the here and now.

"What do you think of your district partner?"

How could he not form an opinion of her? She looked like a tiger to him, standing on that stage, head held high, hair tied back in a short ponytail, and a fierce stare that pierces through flesh and bone alike when they lock eyes, to shake hands. "She'll be a handful," Rodric comments tastefully. She had a good figure, he notices, but only for a second, as he's trying to listen to the escort, but instead is watching his lip glossed lips move. "But I think I can handle her."

"You can win this, Rodric," his mother says. "You _can. _You have experience on the farm working whips and forcing the animals together and-"

"I get it, Mom," he smiles wryly. If she were to continue prattling on and on about all the experience he has in potentially winning the Hunger Games, he'll begin to get anxious again, and cool, easy-going Rodric Oxford does not lose his cool. "My chances are better than most."

"One more thing," her eyes bright, as she digs into her pocket, digging out contents that are unknown to him. He realizes, just as his mother opens her palm, that she is not wearing her wedding ring like she usually would. Her mother and father's love is eternal, a love he could only hope for - maybe with that Peacekeeper outside the door? - and there is no way in Panem's good graces would she ever willingly take it off. In his mother's palm are her and his father's wedding rings, tied together on a piece of black string, done so to form a necklace.

He backs up some, one hand against his chest, the other extended out towards her. "No. I can't take that. That-"

"Take it," his mother insists, she matching him step for step. "This is our token to you, your token for Ten. Wear it with pride."

"Mom, I _can't_," Rodric tries to argue back, but she reaches him now, pressing the necklace firmly into his hand.

"So you know that we are always thinking about you, and that we'll always be with you," she says, and there are tears beginning to prick at the corners of her eyes. She draws Rodric back into her arms, standing on the tips of her toes, as high as she can reach, to match his level. "I love you, Rodric. Your father and your brothers and sisters... we all love you."

"I love you all too."

"Remember," and all of a sudden, her grip tightens, the hand that encircles the back of his neck, and the one that seizes a bit of his shirt on his back, grabbing some of the material in a bunch and pulling it back. "Remember, Rodric," she repeats again, "The Phoenix will burn brightly once more, and it will one day fly again."

With that, as if on cue, the door to the outside world, the door to freedom, opens once more, several Peacekeepers standing in the entryway. Rodric blinks, frowning, in confusion. The Phoenix? What the hell does that mean? His mother kisses him on the cheek, still on her toes, leaving him with their wedding rings and a remembrance that he has no relation to. He does not even get to utter the actual word 'goodbye', as his mother's wave of hair vanishes behind a corner. Standing out in the middle of the hall is another group of Peacekeepers, about three or so, with his district partner.

Rodric does a double take at her, as one of the Peacekeepers in his bunch motions him forward, as his female partner has a bloody nose, scarlet pouring down her face, into a puddle on the floor that she is not bothering to clean up. _What the hell happened to her? _Is she the Phoenix? Why would his mother talk to him about his district partner flying again?

He shakes his head, sighing deeply, before slipping the necklace on his head, both wedding rings clinking together softly as they rest on his sternum, and he brings one of his hands up to them, knocking them back and forth. If he were back home right now, he'd be shoveling hay, and cattle-prodding a few of the older oxen into the open field for their daily exercise regiment. Now, instead, he is about to walk into the open gaping mouth of the beast, with a cattle prod of the Capitol's own creation resting against the square of his back.

No time like the present, he is certain, to feel entirely confused, and that his mind just might be broken.

The 101st Hunger Games claim even more victims.

* * *

**Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #8: Their Broken Minds, the next chapter for Bombs and Bullets, and this time I focused on Sophiana Delarosa by Santiago Poncini20, the District 5 female tribute, and Rodric Oxford by Alecxias, the District 10 male tribute (ironically, both of them submitted tributes for Slaughter, and they both had Career tributes, _and _their tributes got 5th and 4th respectively). One of them was a conventional reaping moment, the other a moment in saying goodbyes, something I have never actually written in any of my SYOTS, so that was nice.**

**Next chapter, Chapter #9: Their Shattered Souls, is going to be one of three train ride chapters, where I focus on three different characters each, somewhere in the 4.5k-6k range word count wise simply as I am adding an extra tribute to the mix. My pattern for these chapters that focus on an uneven number of tributes is that I go back and forth between genders, so either the pattern will be M / F / M, or F / M / F for introductions, as I like order and patterns and whatnot. I hope you all review, as ya'll were really killing it for the previous chapter, and keeping this energy up just motivates me more. I hope you all have an amazing day! Can't wait to see you again! Love you all! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	9. Their Shattered Souls (Intros III)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #9: Their Shattered Souls. I know I am a little behind on getting the chapter out - wanted it to be ready by last Friday - but due to some real life stress and writer's block and honest laziness, we haven't been able to make much progress. This chapter will start the train rides, and we are meeting three new tributes today: I will be following the pattern I did for Sheep Led to Slaughter pretty much to the T from here on out, so if you have any question on what that means, just ask. The three tributes we are meeting are: District 1 Male Cyril Barther, the District 2 Female Maren Johnson, and the District 11 Male Vanya Vasiliev, submitted by thorne98, Crashed Ice24, and TheMayflyProject. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #9: Their Shattered Souls.**

* * *

_~ I walked out to the Lord's sanctuary, hoping he'd bless me, but instead, I was devoured._

**_Cyril Barther: District 1 Male P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

"You shouldn't have done that. What did you think was going to happen?" Following that statement is a scoff, and one that eighteen year-old, District 1 Career volunteer felt had been needed. He stands in the middle of the dining car, feet firmly planted into the crimson carpet, a spot bundled up by his shoes that shift back and forth on the fabric. His remark does not go unnoticed by the two victors of the dining car, Kevia Janelle and Lance Viel both looking up at him with shock and alarm. Cyril lifts his head, swallowing fearfully, and he rights himself a bit more rigidly.

Lance has a crunched up napkin pressed against his nose, and Kevia wiping a few droplets of blood off of his shirt, putrid stains of vermillion that create a constellation bathed in brute force and oppression. Cyril has never spoken to them like that, always respectful, always quick to apologize in case something he does say can be viewed a bit more inflammatory than usual. Not now, however, today is not the time to begging for forgiveness. When the Avox's face appears on screen, with the red hair so alarmingly similar to the blood splatter on Lance's clothes, it only requires someone pulling the plug on the monitors for the feed to go away, but Cyril is sure the damage has been done already, done so in fact where a few of the older girls - not guys, but the girls - try to shout over the escort, demanding clarification on what had just been dropped in their laps. A few Peacekeepers get rough, Lance tries stepping in to break them up, and he gets a billy club of leather straight to the face, breaking his nose, and Kevia has to rein everyone in at that point.

Cyril is just itching to volunteer and be done with the whole charade, but he doesn't get to make that decision. Lance looks at Kevia for a moment, eyebrows furrowed together, a look of puzzlement on his face, before looking back at Cyril. He stands up, slowly, the legs of his chair screeching against the tile from where the table sits, as the carpeted floor Cyril is on diverts to the left just past the mini-bar. He looks at the victor straight in the eye, as Lance approaches him, still a good three or four inches taller than him, and Cyril finds himself to be at an adequate height for a Career male. He has to stifle a laugh in his head, as Lance Viel looks a lot less threatening with a tissue clogging up one nostril, for he should have had the wherewithal to notice a baton swinging straight for his face.

An unspoken moment passes between all three of them, and Cyril notices that Satin's presence has gone unnoticed in the dining car, for she is asleep, having woken up early to get her makeup done for the reaping. Lance raises an eyebrow, crosses his arms to mirror Cyril, clearing his throat. "Run that by me one more time."

"You shouldn't have tried to intervene," Cyril repeats, although his voice shakes on this go-around. "You were only going to make it worse."

"Cyril, you are in no position-"

"You're right! I am in no position, but I'm gonna say it anyways!" he shouts, but he does not get up in Lance's face. He may have a broken nose, but he's thirty years older than him, four inches taller, and still lethal, and he could picture the downfall of the District 1 team if he were to slay one of the victors in the dining car. Cyril paces over to one of the windows, pressing his forehead against the glass. Kevia sits in her spot, still stunned, mouth pursed in an 'o' shape. Lance rubs a hand down his face, pressing the tissue further up his face. Cyril looks back at both District 1 victors. "I don't know what the hell is going on in the Capitol or what happened back at the reaping, but I suspect, from what that Avox-"

"Rennie," Kevia says quietly from her seat.

"From what _Rennie _says," Cyril corrects himself, "It isn't good, and we're about to go to the Hunger Games in the middle of this political discourse." He turns around so his palms are touching the windowsill, cold tile sending chills up and through his palms. Frankly, Cyril turns around from the window so he wouldn't have to see his reflection, a pale face that is whiter than the fresh snows that lay in the winter months, a face dotted in chickenpox acne, red welts and blemishes marring both cheeks, creating a crater surface along his nose, and it is unfortunate that the sharpness in his jaw and the bulk of his nose is hidden under what he'd consider to be the ugliest feature to face any creature in Panem. He understands it is a hyperbolic statement, but he doesn't care. Why couldn't he be blessed with _his _good skin and gorgeous eyes and gorgeous hair and a face that is blemish free... instead of looking like a cirque freak?

Lance locks his jaw, grabbing a muffin off of one of the trays, undoing the wrapper and crushing it into a ball. "This is more than just me getting my nose bloodied, isn't it?"

"Well aren't you just a scholar in the making?" Cyril scowls, but that very action causes him to wince inwardly. He is never this hostile... he hasn't been this hostile since- he shudders off the memory. "No, of course not. Why, out of the District 1 arsenal, does it have to be _him?_"

"Cyril," Kevia tries intervening, getting up from her seat, but staying over in the corner.

"Why Emmett? Why my father?" Cyril throws his hands in the air. "I knew that the Games wouldn't be the most amazing thing when he won them, and then proceeded, twelve years later, to start drinking heavily, I knew that..." he shakes his head back and forth, a lump forming in his throat. "But how would I know about him and the beatings? How could I predict that my mother would lay in the bathroom one night, unconscious, with a wine bottle smashed over her head and the wine running along her body, staining her dress?" He looks at Lance sharply, dead-on, and he jostles somewhat, as there are tears forming in Cyril's eyes, crystalline droplets sliding down his cheeks. "I thought the wine was blood, after it had stained and dried. I thought my mother had bled to death. I was ten."

Cyril remembers how that scream expelled from his throat, where it vibrated the bathroom mirror, rocked his skull, and the scream continued until he couldn't yell anymore. That is the moment, the moment when Cyril Barther begs his mother shortly after, when she's stable, and his father, Emmett Barther disappeared into the night, that he sign up for the Career academy. He is two years behind, as most enter at around eight or nine, but he needs to go in _now. _There's hopelessness in his mother's eyes, a lifelessness that scares him, but he does dare not scream again. Everyone in the district knows now, eight years later, that Emmett Barther is a drunkard who beat his kids and wife, and then hid away in a Victors Village home, started to raise an animal every once in awhile to keep him company, and now he'll be mentoring his own son for the Hunger Games.

He hasn't spoken to his father in four years. Not a happy birthday wish, or Christmas card, or a phone call every once in awhile to ask how the training is going. Pure radio silence.

He could crush his father's throat now, an emaciated man who prefers booze than a human hand to caress his thigh. Part of him has always wanted to enter the Games, and then end his father's puny, non-existent life, but somewhere, Cyril has to send that anger, that he has to let that anger go, but he doesn't know where it needs to go. Cyril found out that his dad is mentoring the moment he saw him enter the Justice Building after he and his district partner, Satin, volunteer. A victor only enters the Justice Building after the reaping if they are to be heading to the Capitol, on the train. He doesn't know where his father is on the train, most likely somewhere up front close to the driver, and in his cups, guaranteed.

Cyril scoffs to himself, as Lance returned back to his seat with Kevia. "My dad is on this train and probably doesn't even know that I'm on it, that I'm going to go fight to the death and try to clear up the shit he's done to my last name in the past. You've been mentoring for eight years straight, and now we have Valencia too! Why the change now? Why _now, _when I'm volunteering?"

"Because I have to go District 10, because their victors died or are now in a Capitol prison..." he clears his throat. "You saw the video."

"I saw it," Cyril runs a finger down his arm, feeling the pulse at his wrist. What would happen if he were to cut just there and let himself spill all over that carpet? It is not like anyone would be able to distinguish the carpet from his own blood, would they? "I saw it, and I saw my father clutch a bottle of whiskey during the chaos..." a perceptible shake of his head. "He disgusts me. It'd be better off if he were dead."

Lance shakes his head. "Cyril, you don't mean that. You would feel-"

"How would I feel?" Lightning fast, Cyril's gaze snaps over towards the victor. "You don't know anything about my family, Mr. Viel. Besides, look at you," Cyril gestures, hands falling over the body. "Look at you and the state that your intelligence brought us to. A bloody nose and oppression," Lance opens his mouth to rebuttal, but it is Kevia who has the furrowed eyebrows that are pent up in anger, she standing up in her chair, but he does not give her the time of day. "Forget it. I'm going to sleep. Maybe I'll pinch myself the entire time and see if I am dreaming..."

Cyril removes himself from the dining car, shaking his head, muttering to himself. He knows he shouldn't be hostile, as Lance and Kevia are just trying to help, but at the end of the day, neither one of them will be his mentor. Satin will have Kevia, Lance will be helping both District 10 tributes, and he gets his drunkard father as the cushion instead. Valencia, their new shining star, who disappeared randomly to the Capitol just a few weeks ago, won't even be on the mentoring squad, not living on their floor... what good is she for then?

Useless, all of them.

Cyril Barther is sick and tired of standing by and watching uselessness take hold, watching uselessness take over.

It is time he takes matters into his own hands, for only he has control of his life from here on out.

* * *

**_Maren Johnson: District 2 Female P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

How long would it take for someone who is in trouble to realize that they're in trouble? That isn't the strongest foot Maren Johnson has got herself starting on, but it is the truth. She sits on her bed in the train, head resting up against one of the pillows that feels as if it has been rained on by a thunderstorm and then let out to dry in a mortar and grime brick oven. Maren scoffs to herself, now knowing full and well that she is not going to get a good night's sleep on the train. Her mother's words sink deep into her skull, a cold and clammy hand for it is raining in District 2 when the reaping happens, and the flesh is water soaked, smelling of mildew and fish. Maren Johnson hates fish, but that's besides the point. She knows that she's late to the game, a bit slow on the swing, and she is trying to not freak herself out about it.

Generally, and this is general, as Maren has been told this five times now by Ellison, the greying District 2 victor that would be doing it alongside Hale Cornerstone, who would be _her _mentor - oh, wait, Maren reminds herself, Hale Cornerstone is in _fucking _prison, just to add a bit of shine to the whole washed out picture - but instead he is doing both roles, for it is said on the street that Valencia Shale, the District 1 victor who _just _won would be picking up the slack for Hale's absenteeism. Ellison's hand is heavy, stitched and smoldered like a cross-stitch that has been ripped out of a jacket time and time again, with scars that line the thumb, a ribald of spotted pink flesh that burns and glows pink in the sunlight. How does a scar glow pink in the sun...? Doesn't matter. Maren is getting way off track.

She's stuck, and she knows it, because she's volunteered for the Hunger Games as a District 2 Career - District 1 is famous, sure, and they have victors, but they aren't District 2, where the Peacekeepers come from, where Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro comes from, so they have a reputation to be the best, and they _are _the best - and her age is what will keep her back. There have been some Careers that have been younger than eighteen, but they were seventeen and still bled and died out like the other tributes that were not Careers that were not eighteen year-old's that did not come home standing upright. Maren clutches her hands together, swallowing heavily. Her district partner's car is two up from hers, kept separate by a Peacekeeper log, and she is not about to go stare at the rats in white.

Maren's never liked the Peacekeepers, as she's been on the brunt end of their sarcasm and the black barrels of their assault rifles once or twice. She does not have the time right now to question her feelings towards the Capitol, or the fact that she's decided to throw herself into a death ring, but she'll deal with it when it is staring at her straight in the face. She tucks a lock of chestnut hair behind her ear, flipping on her side, and leans over slightly to the right so she get a look at herself in the mirror. Staring back at her is something she is unsure how to describe, and Maren wants to be able to, at the end of the week, and _before _she is staring at her reflection again on the other side of the glass tube's covering, that she knows what she is looking back at and describe it.

"Easier said than done, huh?" she whispers to herself, fingers tightening around the porcelain edge. She's trained. Maren's been training at her mother's heralding call with the Academy as early as she could, which required the mayor's permission, and Maren takes it to like a hummingbird sucking nectar out from a flower. Her grace is unparalleled by another candidate her age, and Ellison as well as Hale are reporting possible signs of victorship when she's eighteen, but Maren doesn't have that time on her side. She doesn't have another two years to wait, she's got maybe five or six months at best, and it isn't her suffering from the breast cancer. Maren blinks to herself, righting away from the mirror. She hasn't thought about it head on since she heard the news, her mother holding her hand across the bed's frame, a gilded gate of heaven, and Maren doesn't have to grope around blindly for her mother's hand this time, fingers find fingers immediately, and she knows.

She _knows._

_"You won't survive this, will you?" Maren asks, and her mother's eyes are sharp jolts of electricity flowing through her veins, synapses roaring to life. _

_"It'll kill me, Maren."_

_"No it won't," she urges, tightening her grip, and her mother finds her face. The other hand goes up to touch her cheek, and Maren coos into the feel. It has been a long time, a long, long, long time since she's been coddled like this, a long time since she's ever been dealt this hand. It is almost as if life is flooding back into her mother's veins again, for that brief moment, where she remembers that she has a daughter, and she's a mother, and Maren can see the brightness starting to flicker in the eyes. That is all it is. A flicker. Her mother's jaw tightens, and the grip hardens._

_"You know what you need to do, then? I'm given a year. Maybe less."_

_A lump forms in her throat, and Maren is afraid that the lump will never go away. She'll be coughing up blood and phlegm for the rest of her life, for the short range her life consumes that is, by fulfilling her mother's dying wish - "But she isn't dying!" the thoughts would protest, and she ignores them - and volunteering from the Hunger Games. She isn't as prepared as she'd like to be, despite being skilled, despite being a good candidate for the two year extension, but Maren is not going to go alone in this world without her mother, without the woman who tropifies her, painting her into a golden statute that is to be taken out only for ceremonious occasions. _

Maren rehearses it, and she rehearses it, and rehearses it until her voice has gone hoarse, but when she raises her hand and shouts and screams that she will volunteer over whatever dumb blonde is supposed to volunteer, catching the world off guard, Maren does not waver. There's no cough on her behalf, and her body moves robotically to the stage, but Maren has planted her feet firmly on the concrete, glaring at whoever would get in her way. This is the easiest way to get the treatment her mother needs, as she's already seeing the decay. The skin sags a bit some off the hands, where if her mother drags the fork across the dining table tablecloth, the skin slides with it like a wave, or molasses slowly gliding off of a spoon's reflective surface. In that reflective surface, Maren sees herself. She's the molasses though, slowing her mother down from being cut free, slowing her down from being granted the freedom she's wanted for a long time.

The molasses wouldn't be that typical brown and opaque color she's seen. Hers would be metallic, silver in color almost, and taste of radioactivity, blood in the back of the mouth, metal lining the gums and drilling into her teeth with a ripe sweetness that is like a strawberry gone sour, but sour in so that it is sweet. Maren feels Ellison's clammy hand on hers, still drying from the air condition and the rain with the sleeves rolled back for she can smell the fish on the collars and the buttons and it is gagging her. The hand reaches her face, like her mother's had, back then, back then with the diagnosis and the command, the demand, the desire of death. Ellison's isn't comforting, however, and Maren sees that in his eyes. She likes him, and he likes her, for he's made it known. The disappointment hidden somewhere in those milky whites, drowning in the sea of mud with a black dot staring back at her, out into space.

"You weren't ready yet," Ellison says, and the hand falls from Maren's face.

"Was I ever going to be ready?" she asks. A rightfully needed to ask question. She can sense that the house of cards would fall soon, and Maren is not going to be grabbing an ace of spades. A Jack, most likely, is her selection, a fool painted in red, for red is the color someone does not wear on a battlefield, and she's shot to death.

Ellison doesn't even say anything. He simply shakes her head, and Maren's lower lip quivers. It is impossible to turn the train back around. It is impossible to dive back into the covers and beg and scream with some holy creator that things be reversed. It is impossible to wish that the sickness would have killed her mother just minutes after being told to volunteer. Maren wants nothing more in the world than to be alone, even though she knows she couldn't do it, but she _wants _it. When Maren Johnson wants something, she generally gets it, and she'll gladly kick someone in the private parts if the sickly sweet smile doesn't do it first, but she doesn't have to do the sickly sweet smile. Everyone likes her, and everyone respects her, and everyone will give her what she wants.

"_Cancer treatment?" _she thinks sardonically to herself. "_Me winning the Hunger Games and not getting a spear in the back? Can you give me that?" _

Maren doesn't need a heavenly voice from above to tell her that the answer is no. It is something she has to earn on her own clout, her own ability, her own strength. A strength she is currently thinking she is lacking, but that is besides the point. A lot is going to be besides the point. All that matters, and it is what Maren is focusing on, is if she can handle it. Can she win?

Can she do it?

"Abso_fucking_lutely…" Maren whispers to herself, returning to the counter, hands gripping it, and a vicious smile dancing across her smile.

* * *

**_Vanya Vasiliev: District 11 Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

At times, when Vanya has nothing to do, and this is one of those moments, he finds himself staring at his feet. There is no way, unfortunately, for him to think of that without it seeming weird and oddly self-sexual in his head, but he cannot help it. When he stares at his foot, which bends at an odd angle given the flexibility in his foot, when he lifts his leg up to the touch the underside ceiling of his bedroom car, feet perfectly pointed, Vanya is impressed. No other dancer in the districts could ever say that they're as impressive technically with their body like he is. It simply isn't possible. Not in any of the districts, and the Capitol would be hard pressed to argue, he knows, but Vanya knows how skilled he is. He also knows though, how his skill is not going to necessarily help him win the Hunger Games. Performing a ballet routine of Swan Lake for the Head Gamemaker, Constantine Fallorne... that won't give him some eleven or twelve. Maybe a one or two, since the Capitolites don't appreciate art.

"Their form of art," he spats to himself, "Is putting us in an arena and watching us die. Their form of art is my feet sickled and broken..." A shudder ripples through him, and Vanya rubs his hands over his eyes. It is late, past midnight now, if he stares at the digital analog clock resting on the nightstand. He should get some sleep, but Vanya cannot keep his eyes closed for the life of him. With no one to look at him, for there aren't actually any cameras watching him sleep or where he goes to urinate in the ordinated bathroom, the look of stoicism drops. Vanya brings his lower lip closer to his mouth to clench down on, and the sour taste of copper fills the basin, washing the gums in a river of ripe ruby red. Oh, god, how his father would rub at his cheeks, trying to bring color to them, while the cameras flashed and tried capturing the brilliant Mr. Vasiliev in his glory that is a mock bathrobe that smells of toothpaste and cat fur.

Vanya is famous in the Capitol. He's famous in all of Panem, practically. Although most people wouldn't be able to match a name to the face or a face to the name, either one is recognizable in certain circles, for being one of the, if not _the _most elite dancer Panem has to offer. Being a part of the Capitol's own ballet tour, Vanya has spent more time in the Capitol than probably every mayor to ever hold office. He knows the insides and outs of a few of their systems, seeing the opulent ballrooms and eating off expensive china, hoping and praying someone just steals him away it all, but eventually the shimmer dies down, and the little fairy dancing over his head dims and he has to return to the granaries and the orange fields, while he watches the others pluck fresh fruit off of thorned stems, he's wrapping his foot in gauze before slipping it into the ballet slipper.

He has to bite down on the inside of his cheek - _not the lip, not the lip, don't you dare bite that damn lip, you sonovabitch! _\- to not shed a single tear when the escort rips his name from the bowl. He is in there seven times, never needing to take out tesserae, but Vanya knows that he getting picked is as unlucky as the next. No one volunteers. No one responds to the escort's question or proposal, and he's recognized when he is on stage, the comforting cylinder of the stage lights beam falling on his body warm his skin. He is practically glowing in the amber light, something he does not try to do, but he can't help it. Vanya is smarter than he looks, as he can see some of the contempt in the people's eyes that are getting their very asses saved by him being the one selected. The hatred that glows under the luster of onyx and mahogany, or emeralds and blueberries... he is made of money, and his talent has propelled him there. Someone is going to be jealous.

"Jealous enough to shove a knife into my back?" he wonders aloud, rolling over, holding an arm underneath his head. There's that odd lump on the back of his head - apparently a lot of people have it, not just him, so he isn't the most special thing in the world, for what it is worth - that sticks out immediately when it makes contact with flesh. Practically every Capitol citizen, however, does know his name. None of them will appreciate him being taken out of the equation, for there is no replacement for Vanya Vasiliev in the Capitole Exquisitue Ballete - why they added extra e's to the words, he'll never know, pompous and pretentious pricks - and they'll mourn his loss. He laughs to himself, however, in private, just for a moment, when given the chance. The Careers are usually who everyone has to compete against, but Vanya is a whole other playing field.

He can get the sponsors, for in the Capitol - he makes sure to spell it correctly in his head - they match the name to the face, and the face to the name easily. Sponsor gifts might have him marching through the arena like King Arthur in Camelot, although Vanya is pretty sure that King Arthur doesn't wear a full suit of armor in Camelot, but he does not have the source material on hand. The Careers have to fight star power, and how do you fight something you can't destroy? You can't kill a name or a legacy, not the way the Capitol thinks they can. Vanya smirks to himself, returning to biting on the lower lip. The sore will heal before interviews, and if Pollux is feeling aptly up to the job, he won't ask about the sore or the bite marks or the bit lip. He's had one interview a time or twenty with Pollux Aetos, Master of Ceremonies extraordinaire.

Vanya can't exactly swing a sword, or maybe even be able to hold a knife steadily as he tries carving into someone's cheek, but he's strong. There's a video reel somewhere of him lifting a girl up by the waist, throwing her onto his shoulders with the grace of a prancing lion through the savanna grasses, and then holding her up by the hand while she extends her leg out towards the skylights. He will skip over the part when he drops her and she breaks her big toe on her right foot in the ballet slipper, but the director nor the audience knew it happened. He remembers how he held the girl's hand in his own, gloved and hers smelling of perfume, rosebuds or something sickly sweetening, and the glare he points back at her. This girl is the luckiest little girl alive, getting to fully live in the Capitol, to never be worried about being reaped for the Games. Vanya remembers the threatening tone of voice when he leans in, face still stinging from the two quick slaps she delivers across his face...

"_If you ever touch me like that again, I'll get President Calhoun to chop the entire arm off..." he threatens, dropping the girl's hand, she hobbling away on the broken foot, eyes wide as saucers, looking back at him as he strolled behind the costume rack, bathed in sheets of velvet, cashmere, and other fabrics. _

He did not have that kind of power then, and he most certainly does not have that kind of power now. Vanya knows it is rude and highly pretentious of him to try and extend his reach over into the pool of what he does not own, but it calls to him like a siren, it calls and speaks to him in a tone of voice that is most certainly not threatening, but it does smell like rosebuds, it does smell wonderful and romantic, and he gobbles it up with a canteen, a pitcher full of the liquid honey, vibrations of symphonic notes, violin stitches and slides across strings. Vanya looks at his hands, and although they are hard to see in the dark, for he is lying down in the dark, the callouses can be seen bumped up at where the fingers are sewn together at the palm, rough bumps that feel like sandpaper when he runs his fingers over the bumps, tapping out Morse Code on the mounds.

These very hands of his have shaken both Rodney presidents. Calhoun's handshake is tight, a glint of admiration in his eyes, from the very time they ever met, but Vanya shakes the hand back in earnest respect. He respects - _respected, _Vanya corrects, _respected _\- the man, for he had genuinely been a good president. When Vanya moves over to gracefully accept Bonnie's extended hand, he pauses slightly, and the First Lady's lips purse together. He fulfills the motion, shaking her hand eagerly, a smile plastered on his face. His fake smile could rival Bonnie's, for both of them were standing there, looking at one another, full of malice in the glow of their eyes not caught by the chandeliers above them swinging back and forth. He could sense the rage emanating off of her, and Vanya has no idea if it is because she hadn't been the center of attention that night.

She couldn't handle it.

This had been three years ago now, when Vanya is fourteen, and a lot damn shorter than his six feet tall now.

"She couldn't handle being the center of attention," he grumbles to himself, "And yet, somehow, the moment she becomes president, I am reaped for the Hunger Games." Vanya has yet to process that thought aloud as he just did in the moment. He vaults upright, almost scuffing his hair against the ceiling, which would certainly burn his scalp. His eyes widen, and he grips the covers tightly, bunching up the material. Is his being reaped a set-up? Would Bonnie Rodney even remember who he is, or had been at the time of that performance? He's been back to the Capitol many times since then, and have performed countless variations of famous ballets before, but every time he shakes hands with her, that same realm of fakery returns, and Vanya can feel the talons digging into his palm, elongated nails smelling of acrylic and fish paste and _bullshit _while her venomous smile takes up all the air in the room.

Vanya lies back down, shaking his head. "Unbelievable..." he says to himself.

If he is incapable of getting any sleep, he might as well think on what he can say to start the waterworks. This year of the Games wouldn't just be a survival or endurance problem. Vanya Vasiliev is gonna turn it into a damn PR war instead.

If he closes his eyes, on the pretense that he could fall asleep, Vanya can picture the same nightmare he's had ever since he started his ballet training and could remember his own thoughts, age five, of the theater burning down around him. If the fire is going to burn down around him, he might as well take Bonnie Rodney with him.

* * *

**Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #9: Their Shattered Souls. All three of our tributes introduced today have some previous history with the Capitol in some regard, or the Games, or Bonnie, or what have you. We've met Cyril Barther, of District 1 by Thorne98, or Maren Johnson, of District 2 by Crashed Ice24, and Vanya Vasiliev, of District 11 by TheMayflyProject. I'd love to know what you thought of these three, and where they are going to fall in your opinions. I was in a bit of a slump the last week and a half, but I wrote this entire chapter today, throughout the day, and it lifted my spirits.**

**Next chapter, Chapter #10: Their Crippled Futures, is going to be another three tributes done entirely random for our second entry of the train rides, but I will say that it will be a F / M / F cycle given that this was a M / F / M cycle, if that makes sense, for I gotta have the balance. I also want to give another shoutout to Thorne98 for his SYOT 'Death is the Rule', and Flammifera's SYOT 'A Study of Mercy', as they're ones I think you should follow even if you aren't a submitter to said story, PLUS I have tributes in there too. It would mean the world if you were to review and let me know what you're thinking; can't believe we have this many already, ya'll are rock stars. I'll see you all again with Chapter #10. I love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	10. Their Crippled Futures (Intros IV)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #10: Their Crippled Futures. This is the second of three train ride chapters before I move onto the tribute parade and we break into the training and all of that stuff. Today, you are meeting another three tributes and they are: Amaris O'Hara, the District 6 female by LiveFreeOrDie, Tach Andon, the District 3 Male by Audmirable (who created Valencia, the victor of Sheep Led to Slaughter), and Vivian Whiplash, the District 10 female by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn. I am very excited for this group, they are certainly going to be bombastic, and all but one will have their twenty-three futures crippled in death. Please enjoy Chapter #10: Their Crippled Futures.**

* * *

_~ I walked out to the Lord's chapel, hoping he'd bless me, but instead I was deformed._

**_Amaris O'Hara: District 6 Female P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

She feels like a prisoner in this dress, this paisley colored, bright and pastel abomination that clings to her body, taut and tight, her body flushed with heat. Her face burns, and if she were to look over and see her reflection in the windows that contain the world rushing by, she'd see her forehead burning as a bright sea of discontent, scarlet that seeps into her earlobes and continues cascading downwards and filling her neck. There is some sort of mistake going on, _there must be some sort of mistake going on! _There is no way, and Amaris has to breathe in and breathe out to try and keep herself calm before either throwing her chair over or punching her district partner in the face, that she is going to stand foot on Capitol soil and be a tribute in the Hunger Games.

This is not what she expects as her first invite to the Capitol. It must be a betrayal in the higher-ups, _from _the higher-ups. Maybe that blonde witch Bonnie Rodney had been scouting out potential victims from a normally bland district, plucked her out, must've smiled cruelly to herself, and that's how she has been thrown on some bullet train in this _disgusting _dress. Amaris knows, as she isn't stupid, that she is forced to be put in the pot, regardless of job status, regardless of title, regardless of how much money her family does or does not have, no one is exempt from having their name dumped into the jar. She still does not expect it to be _her, _on her _last reaping. _She could be back in District 11 right now, punishing, pushing, torturing, killing, for there are grumblings of some underground rebellion coming to life, but here she is, stuck.

Her district partner is sitting across from her some, at a table, rolling a muffin back and forth between his meaty hands. Amaris sizes him up from her perch, smirking to herself. She could totally take him, pin him with a wrestling maneuver to the ground, and break his fingers one by one if she wanted to, but her body is consumed in a fire for a different reason. If she wants to win the damn thing, she can't go breaking knuckles and jaws and fingers just because she _feels _like it. She'll need allies, and Amaris's throat is thick with pride, but she cannot say what she wants to say, she cannot dare make another person mad at her. She is lucky, for most in District 6 do not know her; they do not recognize the cadence in her voice behind the helmet, for District 6 is not the place hearing her voice, experiencing her cruelty, or having to live under her thumb. District 11 feels her pain, but she doubts anyone knows her as _Amaris O'Hara _there, and the chances of either District 11 tribute knowing who she is has become very slim.

Amaris looks back over at her district partner, a guy whose name begins with a P, but she had been trying to contain her rage so much that it distracts her from the bigger picture, where she doesn't even know his full name. He is now staring at her, and she jumps up with a slight jolt of electricity to the back. His muffin had rolled off of the table but he didn't seem bothered by it, instead having his gaze focused on her, on her dark, liquidous brown eyes, waves of chestnut locks that flow to her shoulders, and then she notices exactly where his stare has fallen on. Her hands. Her hands are blistered all over, chaffed and bright pink on the crevice between her thumbs and pointer finger, nails bright, but it is at the tips of her fingernails, just under the beds that alert his eyes at first. A thin layer of black grime hides underneath the veil, stained deep, a leather look to it.

He looks at Amaris this time, gaze locked directly eye-to-eye, she trying to make herself look more intimidating, but he is not moving. "You're a Peacekeeper, aren't you?" he asks.

She chokes on air, coughing to herself. "Excuse me?"

"You are, aren't you?" her district partner gets to his feet and steps on the muffin, squashing it completely under his shoes. Amaris frowns for just a second at the action, as she might have her own odd cruelties but she doesn't _crush _food. Isn't everyone that isn't the 1% in District 6 starving most of the time? He crosses over to her in three long strides, which has her eyes widening slightly, for _holy crap _he's tall.

"And what if I was?" she asks, shaking her hair.

His eyes darken briefly, just for a moment, but she notices the darkness, and a twinge of pain flares in her stomach. Amaris knows she isn't part of the beloved race of citizens in Panem. Peacekeepers that hail from District 2 or the Capitol always get the worst of it, the worst of the accusations, but this is different, when the spawn come from districts lesser known, like Six or Nine, or places where the people are kind but can breed a foulness like Peacekeepers from District 12. Amaris doesn't know why she likes hurting people, she always has, but she's found the perfect channel to send it through. Her district partner absorbs the question, and then pulls back a sickly looking smile, lips full, cheeks hollowed, and his eyes empty, but there's a creepiness to the grin.

He extends a hand out for her to shake, which she does - she is not going to burn bridges if she can't help it, not yet - hoping to maybe smear some of her tainted flesh onto his, pale and smooth skin tautly pulled back and glossed over, which she finds bizarre. "Ponty Carr," he says.

"Amaris O'Hara," she says back likewise, and a lightbulb goes off in her head.

_Carr. _Where has she heard that last name before? She searches all known outlets for a moment, but she knows it definitely isn't because she's tortured or killed or made anyone with that last name to disappear. Amaris always has to distinct something in her mind: she has never gone after an innocent, whether they be seven years old or ninety-nine, she has only taken pleasure in killing and smoking out the rebels or the creeps or the deranged and looney. However, to everyone else that isn't her, all they see is a hooligan in a mask, they see a scoundrel who does not have the guts to show their face, but there aren't too many female Peacekeepers, so whenever she has to speak, her voice is an immediate standout. Besides, she hasn't been stationed in District 6 since her deployment two years ago, she's spent all her time in Eleven.

Ponty sits up against the counter, he half on it, half on the empty space. He crosses his arms together, eyeing her. "You ever kill anyone?"

"Plenty," Amaris smirks. She leans forward some, titling her head to the side. It takes another five seconds or so for her to notice that Ponty is _jacked,_ if not moreso than the Careers she saw who all volunteered. She had been reaped, same goes for Ponty, but she looks at him, and she looks down at herself, knowing what she contains, and smiles to herself. The two of them could be an amazing pair if they honestly tried it. There is not a huge amount of change on Ponty's face as he processes what she says, but the emptiness in his eyes does indeed flip into one that is more serene, focused, narrowed in. He's judging her, even if he doesn't want to be. "I haven't done anything too gruesome, but yeah, I have," she lies straight through her teeth.

"You're lying."

"No I'm not!" she declares hotly, and the tips of her ears go pink, flushing scarlet as blood emerges from the depths to the surface of her skin. She could just rip the dress right off, stand there naked, and break his neck with one twist of her thighs, this _stupid _dress. Amaris wishes she could have dressed up in her Peacekeeper uniform, but that is against protocol for she still had been a potential tribute. She thought they were all exempt, but there are other colleagues of hers that go unnoticed in the pens as well, fiddling with their long dress shirts or taking a lock of hair and shearing it off. If Ponty isn't careful, her anger at the Capitol for selecting her could switch _really _quickly onto him. "I-"

"There's no need to shout," he says, and then the judgement flickers into amusement. _Mocking._

Her ears roar to life, blood flushing outwards. She leaps to her feet, and although he has a good half foot more on her, it doesn't matter, she can still reach his neck, and she's in heels now, so she can _really _reach him. The glint in his eyes flickers off for a moment, as Amaris rushes over to him, grabbing him by the neck. They're the only ones in the car, both of their mentors and the escort vanishing off to who the hell knows, but that's perfect for her. Maybe she _will _break a knuckle or two as she goes... she can lie and say he fell when he stood on that stupid muffin. Amaris rips Ponty off of the counter, throwing him slightly to the right, pinning him up against the will. His skin has gone red, but she imagines she must look like a few of the victims when their skin sizzles in the heat, charred and blackened, eyes wide, sulfurous in nature.

"Do you want a piece of me?" Amaris hisses at him.

"It seems like you do..." he barely chokes out, and she squeezes harder. Not too hard, though, as she knows with his bulk he could very well twist her arm and break it, from the looks of it, but she isn't thinking about that right now, it is a thought that hasn't even crossed her mind.

"Yeah, _Ponty, _has anyone told you that's a really stupid name?" she tilts her head to the side some. "I've killed people. Men bigger than you, who started to cry like babies when I pressed my gun to the back of their heads. I didn't flinch when I pressed the trigger, I longed for their sobs and their screams. I've orphaned children, I've made wives become widows, and you want to _mock _me? Me? I could kill you right now if I wanted to..."

Ponty's face flickers into something obtuse, perhaps a bit of anger, and the next thing Amaris knows is that she's on the ground, clutching her stomach, and Ponty's hand is curled into a fist. The fist that sucker punched her straight in the gut. Her skin is on fire, and he presses his head back up against the wall, exhaling heavily, one hand going to his throat. She coughs briefly, swiping her hair behind her ears. No one has ever hit her before. No one has ever _touched _her like he has before. Where the hell did he get that sort of bravery? "_Stupidity more like it..._" she tells herself. Oh, if only she were in her Peacekeeper uniform, where she'd feel the most protected, then she'd pummel Ponty into next week, a punch across the jaw to splatter the tile in scarlet.

He walks over to her, as Amaris struggles to her feet, the wind getting knocked out of her, she starting to catch her breath. There is no more love in his eyes, whatever bit of sardonic amusement that had entertained him when he held the muffin in his hand. It is a cold she'd expect herself to be giving, not the other way around. Burnt bridge? She straightens her back, about to raise a hand, point a finger, raise her voice, when he grabs her by the arm, another choke of surprise bubbling and fizzing in her throat. Ponty's eyes are dark with an emotion she cannot identify.

"I am not some little treasonous rat you can snuff out," he tells her, grip like iron. "And you're too cocky. Clearly your Peacekeeper uniform didn't save you from this," he tightens his grip, Amaris trying to wrench herself free, for she is quite the strong June bug, but it is as if he is literally made out of graphite. "The next time you want to take a hit at me like that, do it in the arena, for I'll have a knife aiming straight for your throat, _sweetheart_," he says, and the next thing he does nearly makes Amaris have a heart attack.

With her still stunned to say anything, he leans forward, and presses his lips to hers in a quick kiss, perhaps in a joking manner, but it has her sputtering indignantly when he lets her go, pale indentions webbed along his throat from where she had grabbed him. The grip on her arm is released, and the blood begins to flow, Amaris stumbling back onto the arm of the chair she had been sitting in, head trying to make sense of what he just did, of what just happened. Ponty continues walking towards the left side of the car, back to their rooms, she still stuck in a slow shaw of raw emotion to think straight, let alone move.

"Hey, you... _wait__!_" she calls at him, but he's gone now, vanishing through the sliding glass doors.

Amaris leans over, holding her stomach again, starting to breathe normally. As she bends over, she looks into the corner of the car, a security camera blinking back at her, a twinkling red light going off every few seconds to mean it is in the process of recording. "You caught that too, huh?" she asks it aloud, and that might be the second or third craziest thing to happen to her this morning. She looks back at Ponty's exit, arms erupting with goosebumps.

This changes things indeed, where the hunter just might become the hunted.

* * *

**_Tach Andon: District 3 Male P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

He's literally, in every sense of the word, stupid. And terrified, but he'll address the stupidity first, if that is slightly alright with him. The world rushes by in a gray cloud, as it is storming on their side of Panem, raindrops splattering with ferocity against the windows, dashing out in tributaries. Tach is hard pressed to think of a different analogy, as when blood splashes onto concrete, but he won't do that. It is freezing in the dining compartment, which he finds odd, but is only he and Ciphra Longsdale, the girl that got reaped alongside him. He almost misses his cue to the stage, as the escort calls out _Graphene, _and that is a name he hasn't heard in eons.

"_It used to be_ mine..." he thinks, with a bit of melancholy, but that time is starting to drift away and change into fond remembrance. Before Tach, there's Graphene, with swirly black curls and bright ocean eyes, and a chest that does not stick out that much, but by age ten, the hair becomes short and stays short, the chest no longer grows outwards but expands sideways, and the voice drastically deepens. He does not know precisely what would happen if it is ever put on the record that Tach Andon used to be a girl, but is now a boy, having gone through the surgery, having experienced the change. His father had sworn on his life - quite the heavy bit to swear on, don't you think? - that the name Graphene had been erased from Panemian history, but then the escort _just _has to pick his slip and say the wrong name, the name that drowns in melancholy.

Ciphra is an alright person, he supposes, a bit strange in some departments, seemingly a bit spaced, staring at the corners where the shadows hide, but her eyes are normally transfixed on his, her sparkling green to his darker brown. She follows him at times, she now standing over at the drink display while he rolls his hands over the armrests of the chair he's sitting in, his suit sticky and sweaty as it had been hot and muggy in District 3 before it started to rain. Night is slowly creeping up on the sky, dredges of darkness different from the rain clouds poking on the edges, on the fringes, back it is not coming soon enough. Tach wants to fall asleep and wake up, to continue on pinching himself that this nightmare might finally be over. In one day's time, perhaps another twelve hours or so, he'll be in the Capitol, in a place he's never wanted to be besides formal occasions, for there's been several of them.

He moved in next door to Ciphra about a year ago, his parents wrapped up in shawls and coats, hefting their luggage behind them, while he looks up at the large houses that commandeer on either side. To his right, where his bedroom lines up perfectly with another in the thirty foot gap between the houses, he sees a bedroom through the curtains. A girl looks out on the street at them, and Tach's eyes widen, as that girl is looking _at _him. Something moves behind the girl, who he now knows to be Ciphra, never having learned her name, and he tries to get a better look at what the object is, but by that point the curtains are closed and his opportunity vanishes like cigarette smoke. It is only a few nights later, though, that Tach sees the Longsdale family's prized possession... a _robot. _

That is the only time the two have ever met, besides quick and fleeting glances through each other's windows, where she waves at him and he ducks out of sight and presses himself as flat as he can against the wall, breathing heavily. He tries swinging over to her side of the house - on hindsight, when he thinks about this later on, this is such a creepy thing to do - with a bungee cord and some rope to go in through her bedroom window. He cringes against himself even now, thinking about it, as he wanted a look at that damn robot, only for him to hit the house a few feet off target, get stuck, and Ciphra rushes to her window, having been up and alerted by the crash. He panics, cutting himself loose, falling into a hedge on her side of the house, banging up his elbows, but he's gone before Ciphra can call to him.

Now, she's his district partner, and he's hers, and she is still looking at him whenever she gets the chance. He wonders if she knows who he is, that he's her neighbor, but he's not so certain about it, as he has a great memory, and it looks like hers might be spotty. Distant, perhaps, aloof and free floating. She turns to him, away from the beverage counter, he jumping slightly in his seat as something sloshes out of one of the mugs she's holding in his hands. She makes her way over to him, Tach swallowing heavily. He hadn't expected to do any talking today besides saying his name, correcting the escort at the reaping, but he supposes this is it. This is where he dies, instead of, well, in the _arena. _Ciphra has a smile on her face, which widens when she reaches him, and she extends one of the mugs.

"Thank you," he says, his voice catching in his throat some, as if he forgot what syllables were. The mug is warm, which he wasn't expecting, _almost _dropping it.

"It's tea," Ciphra announces with a hint of triumph in her voice, before sitting across from him.

He wonders, just slightly, how much trouble he'd get in if he spilled the tea all over her front. Tach considers it briefly, _briefly, _he swears, but decides against it. She did something nice for him, which he hadn't been expecting, because Tach thought he'd sit in the chair in silence, staring at the raindrops that would kamikaze against the window. The car rattles some as they drive into a tunnel, and the shaking causes more tea to slosh in the cup. He takes a sip, there being the scent of honey and rosemary hitting his nose, and there's a slight sweetness to the general bitter taste on his tongue, but it's good, and he likes it. Whenever he throws a glance her way, she looks back at him, and Tach quickly looks away. He's surprised that she hasn't said anything about him looking familiar, or at the very least _sounding _familiar, as the Andon name is quite famous. He knows of the Longsdale's as inventors, Ciphra's father being an esteemed inventor, but both of his parents can beat that. His family is a renown line of geneticists, DNA specialists. They don't make mutts, for they aren't Gamemakers, but they're in labs doing whatever work it is that they do.

Tach wonders if he could buy that robot off of the family's hands right now, if he were to be granted access to a phone to make a call.

Ciphra sets her mug down on the table that separates them, a small dinky little thing that is the only protection he has from her, in case he needs to vault himself over the chair for safety reasons. Luckily, his district partner is her, someone who seems sensible, rather than a few of the District 3 kids that have his blood on their scent, following him, wanting revenge for the laws he's broken. Well, almost broken, Tach has to remind himself. Smart enough to have people pay him to do their homework only then to forget the piece in the trash, or to plagiarize an entire paper and then give it back, watching as the kid's face crumples in tears. He's had his shirt bunched up in some bully's hand a time or twenty, but Tach has to hold the spit in his mouth, for he knows he wouldn't look good with a black eye.

As Ciphra had set her mug down, Tach clenched harder onto his, in case he needs to throw it at her. She narrows her gaze at him, tilting her head to the right some. "What?" he asks, stuttering a nervous laugh. He shouldn't be nervous. What's there to be nervous about? It's just a girl... it's just a pretty girl who owns a robot that he's wanted to steal and he tried breaking into her bedroom window for it, totally right, totally okay... _right?_

"I'm trying to think where I know you from..."

"I dunno," Tach shrugs. "You might have just seen me around, you know. District 3 isn't that big and-"

"What's your last name again?"

He swallows the statement he had been preparing, Tach's neck flushing vermillion. He's never been good at lying, per say, but he hasn't needed to lie all that often once the change had happened, once Graphene no longer existed, and his parents paid the Capitol an exuberant amount of money to make sure Tach Andon had always existed, that there never existed a Graphene Andon until this very morning. "Andon. I know you though, your parents do A.I work and stuff. You've created that robot and-" His eyes widen. Oh _shit._

Ciphra notices this, her brow furrowing together, but then he hit the jackpot, as her eyes light up, bright and a furious green. No one else would know of the robot, and he just revealed his hand. She leaps to her feet, scaring him to death yet again. "It's you!"

"What's me?" Tach asks nervously, trying to see behind her for the exit of the car. It isn't very far, and he could make it if he threw the tea, but then that'd seem like such a rude thing to do.

"You're the kid next door! You're my next door neighbor!" There's a slight pause, and the glint dies down, and Tach swallows the rock in his throat, it sinking down into his stomach. "Didn't you try breaking into my room one night shortly after you moved in?"

What would lying accomplish? What would lying even do? He pulls at his collar, laughing nervously. "I- I can explain, I-"

"If you wanted to get to know me, you could've just _knocked_," Ciphra says, as if that hadn't ever crossed his mind, but _dammit, _Tach didn't want to knock, he didn't want to knock! He wanted to be daring, to bend the rules as far as they could, but he pushed too hard and scratched up his elbows and pride in the process.

Tach licks his lips, jumping likewise to his feet, and the action causes both of their mugs of tea to topple off of the table. She probably thinks he's the weirdest kid on the block, to find out that he lies but can't help it. His face falls into worry, Ciphra's furrowing of her brow deepening, as Tach has no idea why he's reacting so incendiary to her questions... it's the _truth. _

The tea doesn't spill onto either one of them, thank God, but Tach doesn't have anything else to say, no way for him to explain himself. His eyes search past her, and without saying another word, pushes past her, nearly knocking Ciphra over. She cries out something in her surprise, but Tach isn't listening. What he's done is something Graphene would do, but he isn't _her _anymore, he's Tach, and Tach's sweet, perhaps a bit shifty, but dammit, he wanted that robot!

He flees for his life from the dining car, as if the girl with honey and rosemary tea would find a way to kill him, _as if._

* * *

**_Vivian Whiplash: District 10 Female P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

The blood has finally dried, when the dredges of night fully encapsulate the sky, drowning out the rain that had fallen earlier, sixteen year-old Vivian Whiplash standing in front of her bathroom mirror, a tissue clenched in her hands, dabbing at the spots that are still warm and sticky with her spilt crimson. She hisses slightly to herself at the pain, for her nose is surely broken, or on the cusp, but it's what she gets, she expects, after all. She had foolishly charged that Peacekeeper and his elbow had been the reward for her insolence. Luckily, no blood has fallen onto her nightgown, a sheen carmine thing that ties tightly around her waist.

Vivian laughs to herself almost comically. This damn thing is more expensive than anything she owns back home, definitely richer than the thousand square foot home she, her older brother, and parents all squeeze into. There's not enough room in her own room, one she has to share with her sibling, but that's what hidden compartments in the floorboard are for. She's about to get ready for bed when a knock comes from the other side of the door to her compartment. She looks up, staring at the entryway to her compartment through the mirror, getting a glimpse of herself, broken but not defeated.

Who would be wanting to speak to her at this hour? If the analog clock sitting just a bit off of the sink is any indicator, it is nearly two in the morning. She can't sleep, but insomnia is not something that runs in the Whiplash family, as she is rather trying to roll with the punches. That's her motto, to run with the punches, but even she cannot deny the surprise that bubbles in her throat when it is her name read off the slip that the escort plucks out, a spry youthful man who needs to shave his beard, a puckish voice that causes the faded stone of the Justice Building to crack.

Her hair is a spiky bob of white hair, bleached as she cannot handle the auburn waves she normally occupies, though she has considered dying it black instead, if given the chance, but that chance is lost now, isn't it? She wants to let her pride speak for itself, when she's reaped, by keeping her face stoic, but that doesn't work deep down, where no one can see her. Where no one can see herself screaming, panicking slightly - she might be cool as can be when knocking down doors and punching hooligans in their teeth, but this is different, for she has to restrain herself - and that, despite her unnatural golden colored eyes reflect confidence, she allows a bit of sadness in them this time. The Tigress, the nickname that District 10 has for some elusive girl who hasn't been caught yet, making the rich poor and the poor rich, with her gentle hand and guiding nature, is apt, with the golden eyes.

She moves away from the sink, fingers curled underneath the counter, and over to the door. Hers, unlike her district partner's, doesn't have a window or peephole to see who it is on the other side. There's no one else on the train besides the few Peacekeepers - the one who punched her is on the train, perhaps she'll give him a visit and chop off his manhood, there must be a goat nearby she could feed it to - the escort, and her district partner, who reeks of money, reeking of it so much that she has to subdue the gag that rises from her throat. She unlocks the latch, as she locked it immediately after she had been released from dinner, wrenching it open, a harsh retort resting on the inside of her mouth, cotton gums bleeding passion and fiery brashness, but instead disappointment splays on her face instead.

"What do you want?" she says, crossing her arms.

"I was wondering if you're okay," says Rodric Oxford, her district partner, he dressed in just long pants, shirtless, and Vivian rolls her eyes. He did not come to her room at two in the morning to swoon her, she hopes. She's already taken, with a lovely man and lovely lady back home for her, to give her kisses and presents. She doesn't need Mr. Douchebag to be running to her aid. "I saw your nosebleed earlier today."

Vivian wants to laugh in his face, as his compassion is unnecessary entirely. Compassion is for the weak, generally, and the Tigress isn't weak. "That was hours and hours ago, and you're just now asking me?"

"You seemed like you didn't want to be spoken to."

She raises an eyebrow at that. What about her body language _now _signals she wants to be spoken to, at two in the morning? "Have you looked at what time it is? If I didn't want to be spoken to at four, I don't want to spoken at two in the morning either, Rodric." The sarcasm is noted, at the way Rodric's eyes darken slightly, and in the shadow of the small hallway, there seems to be no lost love between them.

"I couldn't sleep, and I was wondering how you were doing. I thought it would've be nice to see, instead of staring up at the ceiling the entire time," he says, with the same brashness back at her.

Another eyebrow raise. So the silver spooned has a backbone too, huh? Vivian steps back from the entryway, allowing Rodric into her room, the door closing behind her. She's not afraid of him, certainly, and there aren't many people she'd be afraid of in Panem either, at least for the enemies she can face head-on, as long as she has her eyes trained on them, stalking an antelope through the African savannahs that she has been taught in school. Vivian goes back to the mirror, blotting at her philtrum, the dip just above her lips, between her nostrils, where the dried blood is. She can't seem to wash it off, but Vivian doesn't mind, it might make her look even more badass to the sponsors and to the Capitol, a show well-deserved and needed, perhaps.

"For the record, you don't have to try to force yourself to like me," Vivian says, undoing a few entanglements that keep her hair up. The locks tumble down together, but she quickly ties a red band to her hair, doing so tightly, hence her last name. She doesn't know why she says that the way she does, but the message is the same. She isn't here to make friends, and not even acquaintances, allies are a definite stretch, and enemies seem to populate her catalogue without her lifting a finger or making an effort, but because of the principal that shrouds Rodric's entire character, she labels him as an enemy immediately, if the smell of his breath, full of ivory and clover and strawberries is any indicator.

"Wasn't planning on it," Rodric says, and he sticks himself on the other side of the room, away from her bed as far as he could go like a smart person, like a _very _smart individual. Perhaps she has already underestimated him, but she's not so sure. "How'd you get the nosebleed?"

"Broken nose, actually," she corrects, tying the band tightly so her ponytail whips from side to side, a white curtain laced with barbed wire. Vivian moves over to have the small of her back resting against the side of the bed, so she's equidistant from Rodric to the door, in case she needs to pummel him out the window and onto the train tracks, which would kill him, as the train is going at a hundred and fifty miles an hour. Her brother's voice echoes in her head as she is trying to hold onto him, and the Peacekeeper is tugging too hard on his shoulders for her liking, so she leaps forward herself, and that is when she gets an elbow full of stark white leather, leather that smells of smog and moths. "A Peacekeeper forced my brother out of the room, saying visitation hours were over, and he was being too violent. I tried to intervene, and instead, I got this..." she trails off slightly, motioning to the appendage. "He probably broke it, but whatever, it won't be his funeral."

Rodric's eyes appraise over her, but she's unsure if he's looking at her in amazement, bewilderment, lust, or disgust. "Why the hair color? The red tie?"

"It's for my nickname," Vivian pulls at a strand, wrapping it around her finger tightly. Everything is tight for her, where she has a close knit circle of relatives, she fights in tight spaces, moves limber and effectively in the shadows, but her arrogance has led to bruised ribs, and now, broken noses. "White hair like a tiger's, and my hair kept for my last name, Whiplash," she enunciates hard on the _lash _aspect, and he flinches all the way across the room, where she can barely see him in the shadow.

"Nickname?" Rodric frowns.

"The Tigress," Vivian says, and then she realizes she probably made a huge mistake. She's been at large for two years in District Ten, Peacekeepers trying to find out who this elusive combatant is that breaks into officials homes, robs them of some treasures, maybe breaks an arm or leg or knocks out some teeth - there's been a kill or two, Vivian admits, with a hint of regret splashing the back of her throat, acidic in nature - and sells them on the black market, coinage filling her coffers, passing them out to the needy. She hasn't been too successful in the food department, but all that people are able to describe, for those that encounter her, is the flash of red that ties her hair together, and someone who clearly has a lot of anger to burn.

His eyes widen, and it seems - luckily, maybe - that her district partner is at a loss for words. Good, she finally shut him up. "You- you're the one the Peacekeepers want, aren't you?" Well, _shit, _didn't silence him for long, huh?

Vivian purses her lips, hollowing out her cheeks, tongue rising to the roof of her mouth. He's overstayed his welcome, she's revealed too much. She frowns to herself, playing over the scenario in her head. What would he do with the information she's leaked? Who would Rodric tell? If he told anyone, what would the consequences be? She can't be sent back to District Ten for execution, as her execution is now forwarded in the participating of the Hunger Games... she stands up quickly, crossing over to him. "Your last name is Oxford, right?"

Rodric blinks in surprise, as one minute she's on the other side of the room, and the next, she's in his personal space, her breathing sliding over his perfectly fine nose that isn't broken, the dick. "Yeah. What about it?"

She laughs to herself, a lapse in her reserve, for she never laughs, or doesn't laugh enough. The Oxford family is one of the richest in District Ten, for their cattle ranch, and yet she's never come close to their property, they had never crossed her mind... she didn't knew the Oxford's personally, but with their offspring sitting right in front of her like a cucked chicken, she's starting to fill in the gaps. She hopes the sneer on her face is telling enough, even in the darkness. "It is the people like you that disgust me, you know. Having all that money," she crosses her arms, turning away from him, now in the single pillar of moonlight streaming in, it falling on and highlighting the red band in her hair. "Your family would be one I'd be stealing from in a heartbeat, yet I never have..."

"Thank you?" she can tell Rodric stands up straight, the shift of movement behind her, and she stands at face, just to have him on her six.

"You won't tell anyone what I just told you, right?" Vivian asks, and there's a reproachful tone now in her voice.

She can tell Rodric is grinning, smiling cheekily, the damn bastard. "I won't tell a soul."

"_You wouldn't be able to. No one hears the songs of dead men,_" she thinks to herself, and then aloud, her voice as cold as the harshest winter, "Get out, Rodric. Get some sleep."

Not a word of protest from him, for she's seen him, and he's seen her, and she wants him out of her room before she kicks him square across the face. She wonders how expensive his token must be, the one given to him by someone close to him... she can't seem to find hers, a solid silver pendant given to her by her brother, in the shape of a tiger. Her compartment door opens, and he shuts it for her, Vivian immediately locking it, resting on the other side, chest rising and falling. She undoes the red band in her hair, as she's found it hard to sleep with her skull pulled back so tightly.

"No one hears the sweet songs of dead men..." Vivian whispers to herself, holding the band in her hand, the fabric smooth across her fingers.

She bundles the fabric up in a clenched fist.

No man alive will sing of her tale; they'll all be dead.

* * *

**There we have it ladies and gentlemen, Chapter #10: Their Crippled Futures, of Bombs and Bullets! Again, we've had three new tribute introductions, and by proxy a fourth, and we've learned just a bit more about Ciphra and Rodric through two new sets of eyes. The tributes we've met are Amaris O'Hara, a Peacekeeper, from District 6, Tach Andon, a rule-breaker and socialite, from District 3, and Vivian Whiplash, a rouge, from District 10. By proxy there is also the mysterious Ponty Carr of District 6, but I won't give him away just yet. Amaris was made by LiveFreeOrDie, Tach by Audmirable, and Vivian by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn. Who was your favorite? Although I want to be non-partisan, I, just like the last group, really did enjoy writing these tributes; you all have made some wonderful characters.**

**The next chapter, Chapter #11: Their Splintered Destinies, should be out sometime next week, maybe next Saturday or Sunday if I can manage, the last train ride, with another three tributes chosen at random. Please review! It'd mean the world to me. I love you all so much! Bye! Have a great day!**

**~ Paradigm**


	11. Their Splintered Destinies (Intros V)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #11: Their Splintered Destinies. Last time, on our second train ride chapter, we met Amaris O'Hara of District 6, Tach Andon of District 3, and Vivian Whiplash of District 10. On our third and last train ride chapter - next chapter we move to the tribute's parade with another random three - we are meeting Jason Lacey, the District 9 male by ilvidis, Sage Dagoba, the District 7 female by AlexFalTon, and Mirek Bosco, the District 12 male by curiousclove. Again, this is our last train ride chapter - a bit hard to find different ways for the tributes to interact stuck on a train, y'know? - and soon we'll be in the Capitol to get this racehorse really off. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #11: Their Splintered Destinies.**

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_~ I walked through the Lord's protected valley, hoping he'd cover me, but instead I was turned into salt._

**_Jason Lacey: District 9 Male P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

The tears on his cheek are fresh, painted wholly fresh, having dried awhile ago, but he doesn't remember crying them. He is also unsure whether or not to think if that is a problem or not, having problems with his memory, in which he certainly does not have a problem, but sixteen year-old Jason Lacey doesn't want anyone else to know that there is a possibility of him even presumptuously having a problem in the first place. That statement sounded a lot better to him a few seconds ago in his head than to the current emittance of said thought out loud, where he gives the thought a voice. His thoughts, when voiced aloud in his own head, do not sound like him, a gentle drawl. The voice is higher pitched, more feminine like, and although Jason _knows _he looks feminine with the Capitol dollar piggybacking his wallet

Jason sits in the back of the train, on one of the leather couches - is it even leather? He isn't sure. It is not like he can call his father on speed dial to get an answer. - with his legs underneath him, they having gone numb awhile ago now, as he stares out at the train tracks darting behind them, crisscrossed planks of steel, iron, wood, and stone duking it out for dominance. He sees iron for a moment first, but then the gossamer shine of wood when hit by that ray of light does the trick... and _yep, _he's freaking rambling. It's all Jason can do to hold it together at this point.

His fingers have practically meshed together with the material he's holding, a small rope bracelet made by his younger sister, nine years-old and bucktoothed, holding it up to him with her smile, a gap in her teeth from another falling out, and Jason practically falls apart as he holds onto it. It has come undone very easily, however, since his sister is not Michelangelo, and he's a realist, but too much of a realist to break her little heart. The cord that holds the rope in place is lying somewhere on the floor of the car at this point, perhaps after passing into District 2's train space. Something occurs to him just then, as he recognizes that they are traveling through District 2's borders right now, currently about to head to the Capitol.

All the reapings happened yesterday around noon, or where time zones had it fall as to such. The trains are all supposed to arrive at the Capitol's main station all within the same few minutes of each other... yet some districts geographically, given their nature and how the Panemian law came to be, have them closer, where it certainly does not require a twenty-four hour continuous train ride to the gilded city. Where do the trains that are closest to the Capitol actually go? If they do arrive a day earlier than the others, what do those tributes do? Jason wonders if his father has any insight on that, but then yet again... he bites on his lower lip, sucking the skin behind a row of teeth, plucking at the bulbs that stick out from the gum lining. The possibility of his father having an answer to that nonsensical question is another tally Jason will chalk up on the nonexistent board of things no one will know. However, topping the list is another question entirely.

"Why me?" he says aloud, to the empty car. Jason hasn't seen a sign of anyone on the train, as if it is not even being operated. No Peacekeeper in sight - despite there being an announcement from President Bonnie saying that the security would be elevated on every train for every district transporting tributes to the Capitol for the games, and if there's been upgraded security, Jason hasn't seen them. His mentors must hate sunlight or people or people in the sunlight as they haven't peeked their faces out of their room since dinner the night before, nor the escort, who Jason personally hates, and not even his district partner, but he almost expects that. She looks at him, wide-eyed and short - she is twelve, after all, and Jason automatically pities her - and he practically towers over her, with her wide eyes, as if he is some sort of god. She basically asks him that in a question, seeing how fancy his suit is, while she's in a mere tattered pink thing that Jason's younger sister would abhor wearing.

He smiles a grin full of teeth at her, resisting the urge to rub her head and mess her hair up, as that'd be patronizing. "I wish, trust me," he tells her, and then the girl's eyes return to normal, and the smile drops. The richness is probably oozing out of him, _off _of him at this point, and Jason feels fake, knowing that there's no amount of money in the world that'd have protected him from today. Being the mayor's son had its perks, for sure, but this is different, those perks didn't extend to be being exempt from the Hunger Games reapings. Not that Jason had been expecting anything like that, arriving to them just like all the others did when he became eligible, but he certainly didn't think it'd ever be him with that measly one slip. His district partner furrows her eyebrows together, trying to know where she would've heard the last name Lacey before. It is at that moment she gives him a resounding punch in the gut, causing Jason to double over in pain, certainly not expecting the punch, and the girl's face is cross, eyebrows pent up in anger.

"I eat people like you for breakfast," she declares hotly, perhaps a bit brave in fact, and a whole lot of foolishness riding that wave as well. His district partner turns her head up at him, and he's sure that stereotype is seen as the way the low think the high look up at them, but Jason swears he isn't that type of guy. His family is generous, very benevolent, and they just so happen to be the 'royal' - he puts heavy emphasis on royal with that statement - family of District 9 for the time being, going on about eleven years or so, and he isn't sure when they'll be forced to change hands. Jason exhales a shaky breath while his district partner vanishes from the car, that having been the last time he's seen her since dinner, and Jason has taken breakfast and lunch in his own room, across the hall from hers, a name he can't remember, but it certainly is exotic compared to his 'Jason'.

He's asked his father several times why that had been his name chosen, out of all the ones out there, but his father looks at him with a coy smile, places a heavy hand on his shoulder, and shakes his head. "_I didn't get to make that decision,_" and departs. Jason notices, sitting on one of the couches now, looking at the scenery of Panem go by, that his dad never actually has said the word 'son' to him before. Not that his father doesn't love him, Jason knows for sure he is loved and well taken care of, but there's never been a moment where his father looks at him and tacks on the word _son, _to the phrase. I'm proud of you isn't turned into I'm proud of you, son, as Jason expects, but he doesn't know why it bothers him. His father does say goodbye, hugging him tight, but even then, the term of endearment is not said, and Jason does not let that slip go unnoticed. Jason has chewed off the cuticles on all of his fingers, now gnawing away at one of the thumbs, when he decides to lie down on the couch instead.

Jason can still feel every eye in District 9 sitting on him when his name is drawn from the reaping bowl. No one volunteers for him, but he expects that. Of course no one would. Why would anyone volunteer for the rich kid, the kid with the privilege, the kid is going to die guaranteed at the bloodbath? Jason knows he won't die at the bloodbath, as he's always been the exception, but still, the notion stands. There are no tears shed for the loss of a loved one, or for a district citizen that has given their life for the sake of the good. His family is seen as a lapdog for the Capitol, and Jason knows it, he feels it on him, scaling over every inch of his body, and there's nothing he can do about it. He could go back and win, sure, but that wouldn't be enough.

His father places something in his hands before he goes, Jason trying to interrupt his father's solemn goodbye, as he's only supposed to bring one thing with him and he's taking the bracelet. His father is out the door, however, by then, and his sister is crying too much to come see him, and his mother - he tries not focusing on her, that bedazzled witch with jades weighing her fingers down - is incapable of coming to see him, so it is Jason and this piece of paper, he being all alone. On it, a simple crumpled up white sheet, is his father's handwriting in an inky mess, clearly having been smeared, and there's an odd, pale stain over the writing, as if someone had decided to do a last ditch effort and forgo what they had just written. Some of it is still illegible, due to the smearing and the drying water circle, but Jason can make out most of it. The hours spent with the private tutors on reading pays off, he figures.

It does not make much sense to Jason, as he still has the note in his pocket. He unravels it, pulling it from the cotton sheath it had been enclosed in. The paper has dried by now, but the ink is still smeared. Jason looks reflexively around the room, trying to find the security camera, but he is out of its line of sight. Seeing that the coast is clear, Jason holds it up in the light, the beams penetrating through the glass enclosure. He had only gotten a few words out back in the waiting room in District 9, but the Peacekeepers were about to take him to the train any moment from then on so he does not have a lot of time. He squints at the paper now, reading it over once, recoiling slightly, and then squinting again, rereading it. And rereading it. He rereads it one more time to be sure, before lowering the paper onto his lap, lips parted open, eyes widening.

_Oh shit... _

What Jason has in his hands is an order from his father, to seek out either Lance Viel or Valencia Shale of District 1, or some victor by the name of Criston Pellock - Jason faintly knows who he is, an inventor from District 6, having won the 92nd Hunger Games at thirteen, rather young, now twenty-one years old, Jason having been eight when the kid came through for his victory tour - at the earliest opportunity. Scrawled at the bottom, which is what is revealed to Jason through the sunlight is something he is incapable of understanding, no matter what angle he tries to approach it with. He picks up the piece of paper again, mouthing the words aloud to himself, just barely a whisper, a whisper said so quietly not even his own thoughts could record the sound.

"District 9 stands with the Phoenix. District 9 stands with the rebellion. Burn the Capitol and the Rodney administration down to the ground..." Jason reads aloud, and then he drops his hands, the paper falling onto the floor.

_Rebellion? Burn the Capitol? Who the hell is the Phoenix? Why would Lance, Valencia, or Criston have anything to do with it? Why does my father trust me enough to even give this to me? _What was he about to get himself in the middle of?

Jason sits up alarmingly fast, sweat starting to pour down his face. Now that he thinks about it, it is hot in the car, in the viewing garden car, with the sun constantly streaming in. He shifts himself over off the couch so his feet are touching solid ground instead of the mushy, morphing sift. His heart pounds in his chest like a snare drum, and his eyes flit back to the security camera, in which he is now in its grasp. He looks at the note, as if it is radioactive, kicking it over with his foot, about to stomp it to pieces, before hesitating.

He reaches over and grabs the note in his hands. _Screw it. _Jason balls it back into his pocket, closing his eyes, taking a deep sigh.

Can he trust his district partner? Would she punch him in the stomach again? Does she hate the Capitol enough to deliver a message to potential rebel victors?

There's only one way to find out, isn't there?

* * *

**_Sage Dagoba: District 7 Female P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

If she ponders it enough, for more than a fleeting second, her heart burns in her chest, causing that warmth to spread elsewhere onto her body, and it makes Sage want to pummel her fist through a window, or specifically through a Peacekeeper's visor. She thought the misfortunes were over, but apparently not. It wouldn't help that it seems to be that she's standing next to Mr. Perfect, Captain Bullshit or whatever, her district partner, some thirteen year-old who has seen too few winters in his life, she looking as if she's seen too many. The two of them are occupying the gallery on the train, seeing the wind go by, but part of the gallery is underneath the cover of the train and the rest is outside. Mr. Positive Reservations - Sage is gonna have a bucket load of names for him by the end of the day, and she's okay with that - is dressed in some silly costume, something far too big for him, lanky and with long sleeves that droop over the side. He looks ridiculous, and she's made it quite known.

"You have any idea how silly you look?" she asks, and then in her head, "_Nice job. Way to burn that bridge before it even got there..._"

He shoots her a dirty look, looks at himself and the costume that is almost Napoleonic, something Sage smirks to herself at knowing, and then back at Sage. He sighs heavily, shrugging the thing off. "You're right," he laments, to which Sage raises an eyebrow. She hadn't meant it in an entirely accusatory way, with a hint of humor masking in her voice as well, but she's had that gift for a while she supposes, the ability to 'get the pity' so to speak. It is a heavy work in progress, but she didn't expect him to do anything with it. His name is something sharp, it sticks out to Sage the moment it is said, and she looks wildly about in the eighteen year-old section for some strapping young man, 6'2, muscles that look like cinderblocks to step out of the crowd, until all the way at the end, a thirteen year-old pokes his head out and makes his way to the stage, and Sage is sure the cameras are seeing the rampant dislike quickly spread across her face.

She thought the bad luck ended years ago, when she's eight, and the puckered bruises dot her skin in patches of wild gooseberries, or phantom-esque, sludge like kisses that ring her neck, looking like a faint ribald circle from an expired chokehold. When her ankles turn into something that resembles the lightning rods on top of the roofs, or when her neck has more folds hanging off of it than the most elderly person in Seven, then she knows something's wrong, but the voice deep down that she has, one that has always been strong and loud and boisterous, does not come out, she suffers in silence alone. That had been until the Jovanski's, a name bathed in Slavic history, from a time ago Sage only knows now, it being over a hundred and fifty years ago at this point as _The Gilded Era, _see her collapse one morning while walking past the orphanage. She's taken in, cleaned, bathed, fed immensely, but not too much so she pukes it all up, and adopted immediately.

From then on Sage thinks it is over, thinks she has had as much misfortune in her life when all she knows about is a man named Adam apparently had enough courage and wherewithal to spill before passing out from the five beers sloshing about in his stomach. It does not compare to the feeling of shock that hits her like a sledgehammer to the side of the face when the escort rips her name out of the pile, calling out _Dagoba _with pride, and her own seems to collapse, just like she did years ago on those familiar brick steps, steps that she shudders at every time she walks by. Someone's hand grips her, and Sage looks at her girlfriend, Jane, harshly, and Jane's grip falters... that girl would've volunteered, as Sage sees the syllables just starting to vibrate in her own throat, and there's no way that's going to happen.

It takes her a moment to find him, but he's standing there, just on the outskirts, and Sage glares at him too, glares at her boyfriend Noel, who is about, as she can see it in his eyes, that he'd volunteer for whoever gets picked, but the glare shuts him down. When she, Jane, and Noel find each other standing in the next room, hands grapple for another's shoulders and sides, one monstrous hug, kisses shared round all three of them, and Sage holds onto Jane for the longest time. She looks down at her hands, now, on this odd part of the train, hair being blown about, her plumage sticking up in a mohawk-esque style, the tips dyed a striking amaranthine in the sun, where the warmth of her girlfriend's face can still be felt pulsating just underneath, a red, but dull glow that ruts and twitches like a heartbeat.

Her district partner comes back around, the two standing side by side on the platform, which extends all the way into the glass ending car, where there are several couches lining the room, sunlight spilling through the overhang, but Sage likes being out in the wind. Like any other normal District 7 day, without she and this kid next to her, this _Roanoke _\- Yeah, Sage knows his name is badass, and yet he's some scrawny thirteen year-old and not a savior breaking through the eighteen year-olds. What is she gonna do with a thirteen year-old to prolong her survival? - Noel would be back in the forests, chopping down some unlucky trees for the day, while Jane would be shadowing her parents, the same parents that took Sage in as she fell from the steps... and now Sage is absent from both their lives, from both their touches, and Roanoke is far too young for that. Sage would've joined Noel in the forest day, and that would've been a sight for the superiors to see.

He keeps on looking at her, Roanoke, almost as if she is unapproachable, but Sage thinks she has a perfectly approachable visage - does she? - and there's no reason for him to be nervous. "What'dya want, kiddo?" she asks. Sage winces. Had her father heard that, he might've hit her knuckles over with a ruler. That sort of vernacular is lowly, and Sage Dagoba Jovanski isn't lowly, is she? "_Of course not, sir..." _she mutters into the handbooks, but Roanoke's expression is what breaks that mesh, one with a piqued eyebrow, as if he hadn't expected her to talk to him. The two haven't said much beyond general courtesies for the time being, or an occasional word in passing, as he and her are getting their money's worth - they never paid anything, except in blood - on what to do on the train.

Roanoke smiles faintly, eyes fliting down to the grate walkway that connects the gallery car from the lighthouse car - those are the names, spray painted in some silver font all along the side, on plaques - and then back at Sage. His eyes are sharp and electric, Sage realizes, with a beat that runs through her. "I'm trying to recall where I know you from."

"I've probably seen you around..." she says, tapping her nails on the railing. This conversation is not one she particularly wants to have happening right now, as she does not know how to not make it go down the awkward route of asking where he knows her and where she knows him, as she's never seen Roanoke Arkus a day in her life, could not match face to name or name to face if someone had told her before yesterday morning who he had been.

He leans back on the railing, now pressing his elbows into it and arching his spine, so his head is facing up at the sky, a beautiful, cloudless day where the sky is an open expanse of bone-bleached blue, vibrant and pulsating, like the warmth underneath Sage's fingertips. "Sing," he says, which is gentle enough, but there's almost an air of command around him as he says it. Sage looks at him with a raised eyebrow, stuttering a slight laugh. Roanoke tilts his head at her, and the smile dances across his face again. "Sing something."

She has never gotten that sort of request from anyone in her life, but when looking at Roanoke, with his dark skin, light brown in the sun, and amber eyes full of liquidity and life, she can almost not resist, and that damned charmed smile, _damn _him. "Anything?" Sage asks, and he responds back with a nod. She frowns to herself, slightly, standing upright. What would she sing? How would she be able to just drop something off at his feet? Why is she even agreeing to his request? Sage inhales something heavy, shoulders rising, ribcage opening, and when her voice comes out, it is one that is strong, unlike the one that failed her years and years ago in the orphanage, under Head Director Johanoson, with his pruned skin and spotty, blackening teeth.

Her voice is like lightning, dripping in feeling.

_Place your cares at my feet.  
__Come and ride the air with me.  
Stay by my side, no matter the weather.  
When the dawn arrives, you and I will still be together._

_Do not doubt.  
Do not hesitate to think.  
I will always love you... no matter what they say.  
We'll do it all together, tackling whatever comes our way.  
Do not doubt.  
Do not hesitate..._

Sage finishes with a flourish, her voice dropping off after the nine lines, something that had just sprung up in her head. It isn't very good, but Roanoke has closed his eyes, leaning back, that sweet smile still dancing. Though the lyrics do not seem to have much resemblance to anything or other, Sage instills a bit of District 7 into it. The people of Seven are not a hesitant group, especially in the sight of the Hunger Games. Although they do not produce Careers, they have the most apt job in all of Panem, if Sage is so bold to think it. They never give up, no matter the weather, no matter what storm awaits them on the horizon, they tackle whatever comes their way, and Sage sees the Capitol as the next storm, and even if she and Roanoke do not survive it, she very well might, they very well might.

She looks over at him, smiling faintly herself. "Why'd you want to hear me sing?"

Roanoke opens an eye, looking at her a bit coyly. "I recognized your name. You used to sing to the younger kids on the playground at school during lunch..." and Sage's heart warms up. That's right. It had been several years since she's done that, but Sage still blushes slightly. Once, a long time ago, when she and Jane are just adopted sisters together, not having shared tender kisses between them, Jane asks her to sing to her, just out of curiosity, with a gentle hand on her thigh, and those eyes that'd make Sage melt... and so she did, and people noticed, enough to stop and listen, when Sage feels all those eyes bearing into her, but she didn't think anyone would remember that. "Who was the song about?" Roanoke asks. "You mentioned a you."

Sage looks down at her feet abashedly, then back at Roanoke. "My girlfriend, Jane," and then a tilt of her head, "Perhaps to District 7 too, you know, for we never give up and-"

"We tackle whatever comes our way," Roanoke nods along with her. "We are a proud people." A pause passes between them, in which Roanoke clears his throat, Sage's eyes going out to the forest. Waves and waves of pine trees, oak trees, _trees _in a forever moving wave of emerald green, and her heart aches, her stomach growls, and Roanoke tenses up beside her. She looks back at him, and his jaw is locked, and there's the fresh formation of tears in his eyes. She perks up slightly, with a frown.

"Roanoke?" she ventures cautiously.

He shakes his head, jaw locked, eyes focused on the grate walkway, and his hands curled into fists at his sides. "It was foolish of me to you ask you to do that. We're never going to go home... it's too painful," and before she can say another word, Roanoke stalks off of the train car, the amicable feeling in the air dissipating away as if Sage had chopped that tree down herself. She watches him go, words failing her, there's not another song she can just utter and conjure out of thin air, but she's thinking, she's trying to come up with something.

Where her words fail her, generally a song does come forth.

Nothing comes out after that, and Sage feels exposed out in the elements. She is certain there's a forcefield or some protective barrier to keep them from leaping off, but she can't see it, if there is something there. She shudders, holding her sides tight, a gust of wind blowing across the causeway, and her heart beats in her chest. Perhaps Roanoke is right.

Perhaps thinking of home _is _too painful.

* * *

**_Mirek Bosco: District 12 Male P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

She has not shut up since the moment the two of them have woken up. He might shut her up if she continues for another, oh, Mirek doesn't know, extra ten seconds or so before he punches her straight in the mouth. He's trying to keep his sanity together, coping with the fact of being reaped for the Hunger Games and all, but his district partner has not let him have a moment's peace since they stepped on the train together. She's ranting about the Capitol, ranting on how they're unfair and they need to destroy the establishment and _kill _everyone, but that has him raising eyebrows, as his district partner does not strike him as the violent insurgent type. Looks can be deceiving, surely, but he's not certain that this is what it is. Perhaps just a peacock trying to make themselves appear much more grand than normal.

Mirek pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing heavily, his lunch threatening to reappear onto the mahogany table if she continues. "Will you please just be quiet?" he asks, with his tone as low as it could without sounding threatening or evil. It does cause his district partner to stop talking, with her darker, tanned skin, lustrous green eyes, mouth curled into a slight smirk, but there's a sense of apprehension behind that stare. Mirek sits forward, lacing his hands together, the veins in his neck pulsating. "You've been yapping all morning and I still have no idea what the hell you're talking about. You're going to drive me crazy," Mirek says, and she goes to open her mouth again, but he holds up a hand. He will not be interrupted if he can help it, and he will not be interrupted by the likes of her. "That is not an invitation."

He stands up, walking over to the other side of the dining car, resting his elbows on the chilled windowsill. She remains behind, her name clear as day in Mirek's head. Her name is Bloom Estrada, and from the looks of it, he'd call her some sort of freedom fighter, but one that might take things too seriously. He hadn't been born then, when the previous rebellion failed, but he's heard the stories from his parents who were young adults then, teenagers who had been alive seeing Katniss volunteer and Peeta reaped, or when the arena dome blew out, and when Alma Coin shows her haggard face on the silver screens, and it all went down, doused in flame, the same flames that decorate Everdeen's dresses. Mirek knows that there is nothing on the horizon, no matter what that avox had shown during the reaping. Chaos does not unfold in District 12, during it... it sputters out like dying exhaust from a Peacekeeper truck. The people are too tired. Mirek's too tired.

Down in the mines, Mirek hears talk of rebellion every few weeks or so, but then that guy is replaced by someone else and the cycle continues. He'll shake his head and return to pickaxing stuff to death instead of worrying about how to tear the Capitol down. It really isn't his fault. It isn't his fight, and it will never be. So when Bloom goes on her tirades, Mirek is going to box her straight in the teeth. He's seen the scarlet splatter enough times to not be afraid of it, and he's certain, by the end of it, he'll see a scarlet splatter decorate Bloom's face. He doesn't have time right now to think about how to overthrow tyrannical governments - he has no idea how to even _spell _tyrannical - when he has a family to get back to. He has a mother, an older sister, and a twin brother all relying on him. If he fills his head with thoughts of oppression and fighting Peacekeepers and pulling down statues, Mirek doesn't know how he'll have the time to go and fight for who matters most.

Bloom stays silent, cheeks sucked in, while she taps her nails on the edge of the table. Mirek refuses to look at her, for _God,_ she's annoying. She'd probably faint at the sight of blood, but Mirek knows better than that. He's felt the warmth of a rat squirming in between his hands as they twist left and right, the rodent falling slack in his grip, or the fresh droplets of blood in the snow, a vermillion runoff in the blizzard slush from the downed pigeon tweeting and chirping just above the roof. Violence comes natural to him, but Mirek only employs it in certain cases, for specific reasons... he's no monster, no violent criminal. Just a man who has a family to feed, and he'll duck his head down when the white executioners come searching for the person responsible. In fact, he'll point his way towards Bloom.

Something causes him to frown, as he stands there, looking out the window at the passing forests. He turns back around to look at her, but he doesn't march over to her, as he does not want to invite that sort of assumption into this. He's seen her before, plenty of times, over the last year, with her dark hair, hearing her voice collide and swim over the cobblestone streets and the slovenly built houses patched together in blocks of coal dust. "You're the girl that comes down to the slums and protests nearly every day, don't you?" That gets her attention sure enough, Bloom twisting in her seat to look at him. Mirek isn't finished, however, but he does not remove himself from the windowsill. She looks like she could claw his eyes out with her fingernails if she got close enough, and he's not going to give her that chance. "You go down there and you rile everyone up and then the Peacekeepers have to escort you back home, right?" Even after the Everdeen and Mellark chaos, District 12 is still not the harshest of districts. In most places, campaigning for change and rebellion may be a warning at first, but lashings and whippings, and if provoked, hanging or firing squad past a point of no return. Clearly Bloom is fine though, sitting right in front of them.

"Yeah. I do." Her voice is shaky, which is a total contrast to two minutes ago in knocking down the establishment.

Mirek crosses his arms. "You haven't rallied support, have you?"

A perceptible shake of the head. "No, I haven't. I'm laughed at by most, while others just turn their heads away." She looks back at him, a stare wrought with inquisitiveness, but Mirek's heart remains unmoved. The conversation is being recorded; he can see the security camera clear as day with its red blinking light, as audio picked up just because he mentioned _rile _and _protests,_ and whoever had been listening decides that it is a privacy destroying talk. Mirek understands what she's saying but he can't empathize with her.

He shrugs his shoulders complacently. "Do you think that this," he gestures around the car, "Has anything to do with what you've done? With the protesting?"

Bloom raises an eyebrow. "Are you saying that I got selected due to my activism?" she stands up from her seat, but she doesn't come any closer, something he's thankful for. "That the reaping was rigged?"

Mirek throws his hands out in a '_spare me_' gesture, shrugging his shoulders, keeping his eyes trained on her. Her thought, not his, has Bloom stuck, she evidently chewing on her cheek. He presses the small of his back up against the ledge, feeling the pressure dig into his spine, separating out the individual kinks, elongating himself to be wound up and pulled tight over and over again. He hates her, Bloom, and he's known for just a little bit over twenty-four hours. He knows that it is rash and unnecessary and not generally like him, but he doesn't care. Whether or not the reaping had been rigged to through this Estrada girl in the pit, that remains to be seen, but if something _does _come from it, Mirek is not going to be caught holding the bag with the bomb in it. He'll drop it in a second, booking for the nearest escape route.

"_But why?" _a voice whispers to him in a hiss. "_Why do you hate her so much? What does she stand for that you don't have?" _Mirek closes his eyes, shuddering to the thought. She smells of money. Not a lot of money, like the prep, _prep _kids of Twelve that reek of bleach and perfume, but middle-class. Mirek isn't middle class. His house wouldn't survive the bombings if the Capitol did another air-raid like they did back after the 75th year; it'd collapse, and then it'd collapse even further into the Earth, with his family's screams dissipating against the bedrock, shattering like a wave impacting the shore. Bloom, if anything, with all the time she has on her hands, does not have a family to support. A mother and father who loves her, clearly - "_Where's your father?" _the voice asks, and Mirek is about to punch Bloom again - and Bloom will never have to work a day in her life, if her perfect hands are anything to go by.

Mirek's jaw sets hard, about to say something, searching in his head for something soothing, but nothing breaks to the forefront. He cannot stop thinking about his father, with his darker skin, while Mirek's is a blend, like a creamed coffee - it is a luxury he's had once in his life and he downright hated it - kissing his forehead one day, it having been snowing outside, but his father wasn't wearing any snow clothes. "_Where you going Daddy?" _Mirek asks, but he isn't given a response. Several days go by, with the Bosco family sitting in their dinky dining room, until there's a knock on the door. His mother answers it, and there's a Peacekeeper standing there, in the snow, the already white beetle shell doused in a fine layer of diamond dust. Mirek has to squint when looking at the man, since he seems to vanish into the mesh. A few terse words are passed, Mirek not catching most of it as his older sister drags him by the collar further into the house, but he's heard enough.

_Rebel cause. _Mirek's father died for something called the rebel cause, and at nine years old, Mirek thinks it is some sort of medicine.

Bloom's cause is what killed his father, and he does not want to touch it or anything to do with it as long as he lives.

Bloom stands beside him up by the window, face pressed up against the glass. "Look at it!" she exclaims. He wouldn't expect this sort of liveliness in her voice, as he turns around, but she's right. There it is, basking on the horizon, breaking just through the trees, sunlight breaking across the chromed surfaces. He's seen glimpses on TV, or through the forced broadcasting, but nothing like this. He sucks in a breath, chest filling with air, a sharpness he does not feel while down in the mines. The Capitol, in all of its glamour, appears over the lake, the massive aquamarine surface that separates the train from the outside world. Despite what the city stands for, Mirek cannot take his eyes off of it, as if he is transfixed by a siren song. Bloom's face is nearly as eager.

"Look at it..." he exhales. "The city's huge."

"It is gorgeous," Bloom confirms, but then she looks over at him. It is painful to tear himself away from the sight, but he'll get to see the heart of it tonight, he can spare a few seconds. "It is gorgeous," she repeats, and she sets her hands into fists. "And I'm gonna burn it all down."

Mirek's heart slams into his chest, and if he closes his eyes, he can hear the Peacekeeper's voice still delivering the bad news, and the eulogy that chokes his mother's tears, and the scream he unleashes while bashing his fists into the wall... he can picture all of it together, when his dad doesn't given him an answer... for the _rebel cause. _If the rebel cause wants to burn this golden, luxurious masterpiece down to the ground... he's not going to be a part of it.

He refuses.

* * *

**Alrighty everyone, that was Chapter #11: Their Splintered Destinies! We've now finished the three train ride chapters, and I hope they were all a bit different from each other in terms of the POV's offered, as I have quite the cast. Introduced to you all today was Jason Lacey of District 9 by ilvidis, the mayor's son; Sage Dagoba of District 7 by AlexFalTon, an axe-throwing, soulful singing girl, and Mirek Bosco of District 12 by curiousclove, a man with a pickaxe to grind - please applaud me for those puns; I know they were gorgeous - and there's another three coming with Chapter 12. **

**Next chapter is going to be the tribute parade, focusing on another three tributes, and we'll be off to the races at a speed of light. In just eleven chapters from now, the main action will begin, and our tributes' war will commence, the bombs and bullets shall fly, ladies and gentlemen. Please review; it'll mean so much to me. Next chapter will be out hopefully within the next two weeks if I can manage it. If you aren't aware, the SYOT Alliance forum is hosting the 2019 SYOT Awards where you can nominate stories, tributes, submitters and much more for a community hosted competition - think the Oscars but for the Hunger Games fandom - and the nominations can be anyone you see fit, just make sure to read the rules before starting. I shall see you all again soon with Chapter #12: Their Exposed Identities. I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	12. Their Exposed Identities (Intros VI)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #12: Their Exposed Identities. This chapter, ladies and gentlemen, is always a fun one as this is our Tribute Parade! I am so happy as we've now breached into the Pre-Games phase of the story, which will last from Chapter 12 to Chapter 23, as a forewarning, and to y'know, hype ya'll up. Last chapter was the final train ride, introducing you all to three new tributes: Jason Lacey of District 9, Sage Dagoba of District 7, and Mirek Bosco of District 12. This chapter we are going to be introduced to Magdalena Bertha of District 8 by Tiger outsider, Aris Lindel of District 2 by grimbutnotalways, and Zola Taonga of District 11 by Apple1230. I am very excited for this next leg of the journey, but more on that later. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #12: Their Exposed Identities.**

* * *

_~ I walked to the Lord's kingdom, hoping he'd let me inherit it, but instead I was disenfranchised. _

**_Magdalena Bertha: District 8 Female P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

"What even is this stuff?" Her voice echoes some along the chamber, which spooks her just a bit, as she did not expect the noise to be carried so far. Eighteen year-old Magdalena Bertha gets the first look at herself since being whisked away by the perfumed pounces and their outrageous fashion styles. She wouldn't have even wanted what they were wearing; the outfits were far too hideous. Her district partner is dressed exactly the same as she is, their bodies powdered down and chalked out, her face pale with dark patches on her cheeks, the same application to her arms and her legs, a gray cinderblock looking like dress that hugs her hips too tight, but she supposes it works. Her voice of concern comes from the fact that her elbow brushes up against the dress, and something ashy touches her skin, a weird, totally uncomfortable feeling that is like sandpaper going across her arms.

"I dunno," says her district partner, an eighteen year-old like herself, a Cambric Vogel with stunning, gorgeous aquamarine eyes, but Magdalena drops the note immediately. She's mesmerized by his eyes once, and that's it. Magdalena won't be a distracted damsel over some guy that'll die within a week, if he's anything to go by when she looks at him. Nice eyes, though. He is dressed in a gray suit, dusted all over, some white powder caking his forehead and cheeks, eyes outlined in a black shadow. "I think we're made to look like busts off a statue," and Cambric twists his body to get a better look at himself, dust and ash falling off of his body and out of his dark hair onto the ground.

She shrugs. "I suppose it could be worse, we could look like District 1," and Magdalena points all the way down to the front of the line where the two Careers are standing, looking gorgeous and handsome and so perfect and _blegh, _it makes Magdalena sick. "We could be spray painted silver and naked."

"They aren't naked," Cambric points out. He's right. The guy has a loincloth covering his crotch, and the girl has some sort of ornaments protecting her chest. Magdalena notices where her district partner's gaze is going, straight at the guy, with his sharp cheekbones, electric eyes that Magdalena is able to see from her perch all the way over there. Despite his nose looking like quite the war-zone, the guy is extremely handsome. The girl isn't too bad either, but she looks copy and pasted. _Yawn._ She steps up to her district partner, nudging him out of the way, forcing his line of sight to change.

"Okay, stop looking at Mr. Hot Stuff," she chides, and Cambric turns away, blushing. "There's no way in hell he'd even look over at two District 8 kids," she eyes the girl's outfit again. "Although I wouldn't mind borrowing her outfit sometimes..." and her sight travels over to District 7, the girl and guy made up to be naturistic elements, the girl a well, a tree - she snickers, the originality is clearly lacking for the pair - and the guy dressed up in a large acorn outfit, a literal acorn swallowing his small body whole. "I wouldn't mind borrowing her outfit either. I'd take it in a heartbeat." The tree is actually really pretty, given a shine as it would be if the leaves were actually reflecting sunlight instead of something artificial.

Cambric positions himself up against the chariot, resting his head on the rink where their hands would go to hold on. The lighting causes him to look devastatingly delightful, Magdalena looking away, chewing on her cheek. Okay, so she noticed _more _than once. Whatever. It doesn't matter. "Borrow it how?" he asks, eyes seizing her up, but she doesn't flinch. Much worse people have tried coming after her, much worse people have tried to understand what causes her to tick, but she is not so easily swayed or moved.

"Did I say borrow?" Magdalena asks sweetly, her voice confectionary and nauseating to the core, Cambric's eyes flitting upwards in annoyance. "I'd steal it." She means it, she damn well means it. Asking is an overrated term, anyways, and Magdalena hates asking. She doesn't ask. She takes, takes, _takes, _and takes until there is nothing else in the pile to grab. She turns back around to Cambric, the two having swapped places, and she has to suppress the laugh that almost comes out at the ridiculed facial expression he's giving her. Magdalena supposes that he must be caught off guard, but that's okay, they generally are. Everyone is, no matter the man or woman that shares her bed, surprised by what the true Magdalena Bertha looks like, what she is, when the wrapping is cut through, the foil stripped away. "Didn't expect that, did ya?"

He clears his throat. "Steal it? You're a thief?"

She picks at her nails. "I suppose you could say that..."

Cambric juts his head in the direction of District 10, Magdalena's eyes following. Their outfits are made entirely of rope, the guy shirtless and showing off a definite lack of build, which Magdalena snorts at, the girl looking quite fearsome in her costume, but that comes entirely from her, and not the costume, as her dress is tattered pieces of twine and tweed twisted in a nasty direction that she has a hard time following. The outfit is silly, but the girl occupying said spaces... Magdalena's heart skips a beat. "You might get along with her then," he says.

"Who's she?"

"I don't know her name," Cambric shakes his head, "But rumor has it she's some sort of vigilante in District 10. Steals from the rich and gives it to the poor." Magdalena smiles, she can't help herself. He looks at her, eyebrows furrowed together, as if she can see the lightbulb going off inside his brain. "You don't do that do you? Give to the poor?"

"I steal from the rich and the poor alike," she says proudly. Magdalena doesn't care. It's not like there's anything Cambric could do with the information. He'll be dead in a week, and if she's unlucky, she would be too, so the words fall on deaf ears, for dead men tell no secrets. It is the truth however, as Magdalena prowls District 8 on a whim, generally a night, slipping out through her bedroom window. Her parents don't know where she is, but she knows they wouldn't care to even ask or freak out if they found her gone, it'd be almost as if they'd expect it. If there is something she hasn't seen before in her excursions, Magdalena sees no problem in taking it for herself. She sells some of the things she's taken, but most of them are collecting dust underneath one of the floorboards in her room, the floorboard under the bed. She may have to switch floorboards soon, or start filling up another, for the bulge can be seen if someone were to crouch down in front of her bed, and that is not a conversation she'd be able to defend.

Magdalena is glad, she'll have to admit, although she won't say it aloud to anyone for them to hear, that the powder and the darkness comes together to hide the scars. She can still feel a few of the lashes that line her back, the time when she had been thirteen and seen caught stealing some old figurine off of a shopkeeper's counter. The thing looked cool, shining in the sunlight, and her eyes seize it just walking by, looking through the windows. There is no way she could afford it, but it is mother's birthday in a few weeks and Magdalena does not have anything close to meaning anything to give her. She takes it without thinking, truth be told, but a Peacekeeper duo going by on patrol see her, and there's no excuse she could conjure up that'd make the demons in their dark masks believe her. Twenty lashes to the back and arms, and Magdalena comes back to the house in their grip, having fainted from the lashings. When she comes to, Magdalena expects a slap to the face, to a spot of unblemished skin from the whip, but instead her mother sits down on her bed, kissing the scars and sores gently.

"_You tried to steal something, didn't you?" _

_A sullen nod. "Yes, Mom," Magdalena croaks out, a single solidary tear sliding down her face. _

_"How many lashes? 20?" her mother asks. Twenty had always been the starting number for any first time misdemeanor offense. Although most would find that to be of the upmost harsh levels, it is to deter people away from stealing. Magdalena nods again, while her mother brushes a strand of curly black hair resting against her dark-coffee colored complexion, highlighting her almond eyes. "Let's shoot for more than that next time. How about 30?" she adds on, after Magdalena's nod._

_That causes the girl to look up in confusion. "What? Mom, I-"_

_"That just means we're raising you right."_

Magdalena is able to hold the next thirty lashes she receives a week and a half later as a badge of honor that mar her skin in a sickening tar cover, where the dark flesh is a swollen, turning sponge-like and coarse, like a riveting pink scar flashing between the canyons of midnight. The following forty-five after that does have her faint once more, for the Peacekeeper is a bit handsy with the whip this time around. There hasn't been a following after that, she has yet to be caught again, but that is because Magdalena has been raised right... she's learning what targets to go after, and when, instead of acting irrationally in her decision making. All over a stupid figurine, which in hindsight, Magdalena laughs at, for the thing had been hideous. Her mother would have rather beat her to death with it than accept it as a present, if her father's opinion had been anything to go by.

She jars herself out of the memory, still fixated on Cambric's expression, she having a smirk on her face. "Did I shock you?"

Cambric shrugs his shoulders. "I'd be a hypocrite regardless of what I said. Some of us have to do whatever we can to make ends meet, right?"

"Right," Magdalena nods. She steps closer to him, close enough so that she can feel electricity brimming alongside their arms, the dust and ash particles of their outfits dancing a tango in the space between cotton and flesh, in the singular pillar of the light beam raining down from above. "Thank you, Cambric." No one has ever said that to her before, in her entire life. It has always been one of shock, someone looking at her in disgust or repulsion, but it has never been nonchalance given back towards her, and frankly, she doesn't know what to do.

"No problem," his jaw is sharp, could probably cut a damn diamond, as he looks away from her, staring into one of the light fixtures.

"What do you do? Anything special?" she asks him, standing likewise to him in stance, arms resting on the outer rim of the chariot. She's revealed something quick and easy about her, it shouldn't be hard or apprehensive for him, right? Right? Magdalena knows it's silly, but she assumes what someone is going to say, and if they deter off the beaten path, then-

"No," Cambric shakes his head in dissent. "Nothing to talk about," If they deter off the beaten path, she is surprised. Magdalena croaks a bubble of surprise, but there are no words coming out, nothing but sounds of confusion. She stares at him in bewilderment, as Cambric closes his eyes, turning around to stand in the chariot, occupying the left side of the platform, where the men are supposed to go. It seems as if the talking is over, for he does not respond to her even saying his name, which she finds odd as well.

Magdalena chews on her lower lip, tasting copper slide across her teeth, trying to not think of the strange taste. She shrugs her shoulders as well, making the gigantic step into the chariot, a good foot to a foot and a half ledge that has her arms buckling underneath her some. Cambric doesn't help her get into the chariot, she giving him the side-eye, but she stays silent as well. Perhaps this won't be as easy as she thought it would be. Perhaps she has scared him off, Magdalena isn't quite so sure.

She should just stop assuming things, and Magdalena knows it.

* * *

**_Aris Lindel: District 2 Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

She sees right through him. Aris knows it for a fact, the way she looks at him, his district partner who couldn't take her eyes off of him while standing in line. He finds their outfits actually quite ridiculous, having to constantly keep it centered, as he's designed to look like a column on one of those Greco-Roman buildings. However, he must've been fitted awkwardly as the shoulder space is a bit too much, gusts of wind finding the empty sockets, leaving himself chilled, he wearing no shirt underneath the column design. Maren is dressed the exact same way, but whenever he is not fixated on staring at someone else's costume, or trying to align his own, her gaze is on him, and it doesn't seem to leave him. He's a bit lanky, taller than her by a few good inches, enough where it'd matter, but he knows little to nothing about her. The girl that is supposed to be in her place is someone Aris could've beaten handedly in a fight. Her? Not having any intel on the new girl is starting to freak out; he just hopes it isn't showing on his face yet.

His knuckles are whiter than the bleached out spots on his costume as he holds onto the railing, hearing the countdown tick by every second or so, the golden numbers stretching on the screen out in front of him. It is rather strange, to be hairless, and Aris is missing some of the warmth his hair used to provide him, but it is stranger still to be completely shaved, stand on a pedestal with an apple in his mouth and shown off to the world like a prized pig. He likes the attention, for there are definitely people who will be saying his name. The name Lindel is not foreign to the Capitol populace either, they having been the family corporation behind the new redesign of The Nut, after the cave-ins and exhuming crews got rid of the debris, a project that started before Aris is a concept in his parents minds, finished to when he turned eight, said funding and payment throwing him into the Career Academy in District 2.

The countdown reaches zero, and Aris has to hold on, Maren too, while they lurch forward. It had been an odd, nearly silent interaction with the other Careers, he simply nodding to the two from District 1, but the two from District 4 seemed to be incapable of speaking through the rage painted on their faces, and Aris is incapable of holding the laughs in as he looks at the pair dressed up like salmon, fish lips, scales, the full shebang, and Aris has never seen anyone look as shitty as those two did. His laughing gets another glare from Maren, which does silence him, but he keeps note of it in the back. Pollux's voice, commandeering and wonderful, can be heard just barely over the banging of the drums out on the causeway, the trumpet fanfare playing on the wind, and of course, _the cheering! _

Aris grins to himself, straightening his back - _"Posture, son," _his father's voice echoes in his head, "_Always remember your posture..._" - while the dark sky comes into view. Maren, next to him, tenses up some, but he could care less about her. This is his show, the show he has trained his entire life for, and some random girl leaping forth to take her own place instead of someone else's isn't going to ruin this for him. Pollux is hard to hear over the noise, but Aris supposes it doesn't matter. He gets enough attention on a day-to-day basis, being the face of the PR world for the Capitol after all. It is time for someone else to feel it, and feel it Aris does. The excitement in the air swims over his body, a cresting wave of energy, positively charged energy sparking his joints together, causing his knees to knock against one another, but certainly not out of nervousness.

The Capitol is a damned gorgeous city, if Aris is allowed to think that - he's not sure if Maren is able to hear his thoughts, but he kinda hopes she could so he could mess with her - and part of him burns inwardly, just slightly, that his parents didn't get to construct any of the Capitol. Everything seems exactly one way, despite its beauty, all calcite gray and stone, without any extra additions, such as a glittering gemstone pathway that the chariots themselves could be gliding over right now. Aris could picture it, the beauty, the magnificence, but eventually he'd steal away that magnificence, for Aris Lindel _is _magnificence exemplified to the nth degree. At this point, their chariot is now on the street itself, and an uproar rises as both Career districts are risen to the foreground, the cameras shown directly at the two chariots, but Aris can admit that One looks much better than them.

Maren has started to wave, but he's not sure she's smiling. He'd butt her out of the car if he could, honestly, and Aris looks over at her slightly, tempted heavily in fact to do so. His name is brought on the crowd, as again, _everyone _knows who the Lindel family is, and they certainly know who is Aris is. "_That's right," _he thinks to himself, "_The victor of the 101st Hunger Games, and everyone is going to know my name then, won't they?" _It has been one of his dreams, for there are many that fill his head, but winning the Hunger Games is one that dominates his thoughts the most, they being what he is experiencing in the here and now. The Capitol has treated him and his family fairly for generations, if his father's word has been anything to go by... he couldn't see why anyone would want to stray from their holy touch?

Aris looks behind him some, as the camera has switched out of view, showing District 3 behind him instead. The girl's costume - he believes her name is Ciphra, having heard the district partner say it in the upmost loudest voice he's ever heard in his life - is a twinkling star of light bulbs, the goddess of light, and she looks ethereal, if Aris is to admit it, but once again, just to himself and not aloud. The boy is something stranger, something that looks like a circuit board with wires poking out of sockets in the arms, but they do not look any more magnificent than anyone else, especially not them for District 2. Aris turns back around, and finds Maren looking to his left now, but one eye seems to be expertly landing on him while she waves, and a smile has finally broken free out of her grim expression.

"Why so glum, sugarplum?" he asks her, teasing, and there is no way anyone is going to be able to hear him over the din of noise. He ensures that he is still waving.

Maren's face waves slightly - not so trained in the art of professionalism, is she? Aris smirks to himself, he'll remember that for later - but the wave does not stop. What would happen if he were to grab her hand and break it? What would happen then? "Don't call me that, Lindel." _Oh ho, _not even using his first name.

He grits his teeth together. Normally this is not how it goes. She's supposed to agree with him. She's supposed to apologize for soiling their good works, that all of his good deeds and preparations for this very damn moment are ruined by a sixteen year-old who can't engage the twenty-six smiling muscles and would rather engage the forty-seven to frown. What a bitch. "Did I touch a sore spot?" It is tempting to wave a few fingers in her face, but at that point he's sure she'd push _him _out of the cart instead, and that'd really ruin all of the work he's done. Their chariot is almost three-fourths of the way down the avenue, Pollux talking about Districts 7 and 8 at this point, although he still hears his own name mixed in the course somewhere, a supper of tribute names and Aris knows he'll rise out above them all.

"If no one was watching us, I'd punch you in the gut," Maren threatens with a hiss, but her teeth are clamped down together in a smile.

"As if you'd reach that far. You'd have a bloody nose by then," Aris drops the smile. No one would really be looking at them now, with Pollux going over the groups again, having finished with the rundown. No one will see the moment he reaches for her neck and with a satisfying twist of his hands, will hear a _POP _and another satisfying thud when her body hit the concrete.

"Please," Maren snorts, doing a one-over of him. "With your skinniness, you couldn't even lift your hands to hit me."

Aris chuckles lowly to himself, reaching over and grabbing one of her hands which is resting on the outer rim of the chariot, resting one of his fingers in the space between where her knuckles would go. Maren's breathing hitches slightly as he applies a pressure, a singular pressure at the joint, and if he were to flick upwards ever so slightly, there might be a different sort of event going on. "You're so full of shit, Maren," he says back at her, another smile plastered across his face. "You wouldn't want to get blood on your costume, right? It'd be a shame to spoil something so hideous."

Maren removes her hand from the spot, but not until Aris allows her to, tightening his grip over hers, as his hand is larger than hers, an iron mechanical claw picking up tributes from the arena with their bled out corpses spilling all over the grass. Aris returns to looking back at the cameras on the side, which are capturing snapshots of the tributes. He gets a fleeting glimpse of District 9, and an ire of jealousy springs up in his sternum, magma spilling over to scald pale flesh. The girl from Nine, small and definitely dead meat, bless her - Aris wouldn't mind skewering her, make it quick, make it as painlessly painful as possible - dressed in a dress of flowers, violets, petunias, roses of the snowstorm, carnation, and cardinal color, and marigolds dancing together, and the same goes for her district partner, nervousness splayed on both of their faces. They themselves may look terrified, but they look wonderful, and Aris supposes they'd be the exact opposite.

His district partner opens her mouth to say something, but by that point, they've stopped at the end of the circle, facing the front of the Tribute Center, the ominous building stretching tall into the sky. A lump forms in his throat, one Aris finds struggling to swallow down, as _she_ appears, a viper in sheep's clothing, perhaps. He's met her before, once or twice, Madam President Bonnie Rodney and he finds her delightful. Whatever anyone else has said, it's heresy and Aris is glad to have his sword find someone on the other end of it; it's been itching to skewer something live and fresh instead of the manufactured Academy plastic smell that sticks to his skin. She stands up on the veranda, dressed in a stark white dress, and he's smitten by her, in a way he wouldn't have expected it.

However, something catches his eye too, Aris noticing it when he looks a bit beyond Bonnie, and he sees there are three victors standing up on the circle with her. His body warms up immensely, Maren shooting him an odd glance, as Aris doesn't notice that he grips the outer edge of the chariot when he sees Bonnie's extra occupants. His fingers have morphed into talons, scratching at the metal, Maren hitting him in the arm for certainly somewhere a camera is seeing all of this. Standing behind the president are two victors: Hale Cornerstone, victor of the 87th year, and Hector Merviere, victor of the 77th year. Both of them are in shackles, arms unable to be freed, but their faces are cleaned up from the two pictures Aris has seen of them stuck in their prison cells, faces marked up with bruises and soot. He'd kill them if he could; he'd kill every potential rebel in the world, like the avox that shows his face at the reaping. Standing between them, in a sheen gossamer gown is Valencia Shale, the Career victor from just the year prior, the Quarter Quell. Aris isn't sure what to think of her, but he is incapable of looking anywhere except at Hale and Hector, the two silent, their gaze extending far beyond.

They're criminals, plain and simple. They don't deserve to rot away in a prison cell for the rest of their lives. They deserve firing squads, at separate times, for the crimes they've committed. Aris doesn't mind if he is the one who has to officially make that call.

Bonnie holds out her hands, which are gloved in all white as well, to silence the crowd, a hush spreading over the collected batch of Capitolites. Aris wonders what it would look like if she were to be struck by some silver bullet, just for a second, what it would look like with the scarlet spreading out across her outfit. A shudder races through him; Aris knows he shouldn't brush with the darkness in that way, but something beckons him to it. He keeps his attention on Bonnie's face, which is devoid of any white clothing, her lips pressed together in a gentle smile.

"Welcome, tributes," she announces, her voice booming over the crowd, silent save for the wind that blows through. Aris swallows the lump, trying not to look past her at the three victors behind Bonnie. "We welcome you!" The crowd, apparently who does not know how to listen to instruction, roars underneath her voice with approval. "We salute your courage and your sacrifice," A few cheers and whistles follow this, Bonnie's smile as sweet as cotton candy. Aris is going to make her proud. "Happy Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favor."

Aris frowns, momentarily, when the chariots do not lurch forward, as normally that is the end of the president's brief speech and the trumpets play and the crowd cheers and Panem moves on, but Bonnie is still on her perch, gloved hands now folded over one another. "_What's this?" _he thinks to himself.

"As I am sure you are all aware, for it happened during your reapings, that someone has thrown a wrench in the plans of my administration, following my husband's death," Bonnie continues speaking, the vicinity having gone strangely quiet, Aris able to hear his own heartbeat in his chest. "There may even be those who might wish to disrupt the Games and potentially harm you," although Aris cannot see her clearly, he's certain there's an exasperated emotion shining in her eyes at this point, a hungriness for applause. "I want all twenty-four of you to know what we will not let anything happen to you here while you're under my protection. No one will harm you."

"Except ourselves murdering each other," Maren whispers under her breath, Aris picking up on that, shooting her a glare. She looks back at him, shrugging her shoulders. Oh, _she's gonna get it._

At that point, with her announcement over, Bonnie recedes away into the shadows, Peacekeepers grabbing Hector and Hale, moving them in another direction, while Valencia follows the president shortly afterwards. The drums continue to beat, the trumpets play, the crowd cheers and screams and makes their praises known, and Aris Lindel is on top of the freaking world.

Nothing will bring him down from his high.

* * *

**_Zola Taonga: District 11 Female P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

"We were a total disaster up there!" laments Vanya Vasiliev, plopping rather unceremoniously onto one of the couches in the living room on the District 11 floor. He's swapped out of his outfit, but seventeen year-old Zola Taonga keeps hers one, liking the way it feels wrapped around her body, a shimmering red coat and a small basket filled with plastic food - the stylists couldn't be nice and give them actual substances? What the hell? - that she's emptied into a trash can, but she's kept the basket. Zola holds it in her hands, looking a bit ridiculous.

She shrugs her shoulders, standing on the other side of the room, stuck in the window crevice, the glass cold on her back. Zola thought they did they fine. It could have been worse, she supposes, to herself, where they could've looked like District 6, the girl absolutely furious, the boy silent, they dressed in suits of iron that were designed to look like train tracks in an 'X' format. Their outfits, by comparison are much better, and although it burns her slightly, Zola realizes that more people were chanting District 11's name because of Vanya. "We didn't do terrible. At least we weren't District 6's train tracks."

"We weren't District 12 either," Vanya points out, one arm draped over his forehead, eyes shut. He is gorgeous up front, Zola thinks to herself, but she can't get close like that. She doesn't get close, but that's irrelevant.

She has to agree with him on that one though. District 12 had been the knockout of the parade, and if she thought they themselves had been a tough act to follow, Twelve blew them out of the water. Her heart flares up in jealousy when she stares at the pair getting into their chariot, their bodies sheathed entirely in black, but every so often part of their outfits would glow a gorgeous maroon color, Zola later finding out that it had been supposed to represent magma bleeding from the costume. Volcanoes. District 12 were volcanoes, with dresses and suits made out of cobalt and obsidian, with crowns on their head in an ashy gray color, and the crowd freaks out. Districts 1, 2, 8, 11, and 12 were the standouts, luckily, as Zola and Vanya hear some passing escorts and citizens on their way to the elevator say so, and if they say so, it must be true.

"Yeah," Zola ganders. "They were good looking too."

"And I was a freaking bear!" Vanya protests. "My image has been sullied!"

"You were a wolf," she corrects.

"Whatever," he pouts. "Bear, wolf, same thing. It doesn't matter anyways," he sits up, hair out of place from plopping it on the pillow. "I looked like a fool out there, and Vanya Vasiliev is not made to look like a fool."

Zola rolls her eyes. She knows somewhat of his famousness, he being a great ballet dancer and all, but he's overreacting. They were given love regardless, love that could've gone to any other district, but instead it flows to them. She taps her fingers on the marble windowsill, biting on her lower lip. "You did not look like a fool, Vanya," his name is heavy on her tongue. She doesn't say the names of strangers all too often, and when she does, her mouth feels filled, as if she swallowed a barrel of cotton down her throat, tongue puffy and swollen. "We were a famous fairytale, Red Riding Hood and the Wolf," she undoes the hood, revealing her long flowing dreadlocks falling down to her shoulder, where they normally sit. The outfit drowns out her hourglass shaped figure, but Zola doesn't mind that; it'll appear in the training outfit or arena outfit if that is something she is actually worried about, which she isn't. "The Capitol knew who you were just by Pollux announcing, 'District 11', and you they could see your face."

"I feel like I was made to look like a fool," Vanya complains, his face twisting into a scowl.

"Well, get used to it," Zola swings the basket around her wrist. "Actually, get in line, for there are many others that were genuinely humiliated out there," Her mind automatically goes to the District 5 chariot, which Zola is able to see the pair from six positions ahead not having the best swing of things. The girl is freaking out, genuinely, but Zola knows other way to describe it as the girl quite literally shaking, her district partner, a tall, intimidating guy who towers over her barking at her, but Zola is incapable of hearing what he's yelling. Their outfits were a glowing emerald sort of mess, something to deal with radioactivity, but she is so focused on waving and trying to ignore Vanya's grumblings that she can't pay anymore attention to the real sullied pair of tributes. She looks at him, Vanya looking at her, the way his eyes narrow at her pointed words, and she can't help but go deeper. "You'll be one of the most unprepared for this anyway, so I suggest you learn about humility."

She does not want to stick around for the incendiary melee that'll surely ensue, for she sees that Vanya is brittle glass, made slovenly by hand, smothered out with a rolling pin, and then bashed together by grim hands. He can't take criticism, and he can't being forced into a wolf costume... what would be able to convince her that he is capable of actually doing anything? The basket swings back and forth as she walks - she is going to keep it, maybe have it as a second token, and she amusedly thinks of bashing people's heads in with a wicker basket. Zola would be at that for quite some time - she just passing by Vanya when one of his hands reaches out, gripping the handle. Zola tries to continue walking, gritting her teeth together, but Vanya pulls harder, forcing her to stop. The girl from Eleven halts in her tracks, looking over at him, and he drops his hand.

He remains seated upright, but the melancholy look in his eyes is replaced with a burning black blaze, a retribution kind. "What do you mean I'll be unprepared for this? I'm at a way better advantage than you are."

Zola has to hold the laugh in. She knows she has no physical fighting skills, and conflict is not her field of expertise, but she's realistic. Looking at Vanya, inhaling his perfumes and staring at those curls that hide his face perfectly, an air of affluence reeks off of him. She wrenches the basket back out of his reach - the entertaining idea of bashing him in the head with it is slowly starting to reach an all time high; she might do it if he says _just _another word - standing on the other side of the couch so he's forced to look at her. "Honestly, I doubt it."

"I have fame and notoriety," Vanya snarls at her, a sudden emotional change to the general inquisitiveness from just a few seconds beforehand.

"_You_," Zola makes her way right back around the couch; there's no way she isn't going to have this conversation hiding from him. Her tone is sharp and accusatory, but he does not flinch in spite of her venom. "Have privilege," the word is acidic on her tongue, the heaviness isn't there. It is foolish of her, she realizes, just from the beginning of their talk, that they might've been able to be allies. A foolish thought, certainly. She scoffs to herself, shaking her head. He had been an inspiration at some point, when she hears of the fabled Vanya, a ballet scholar managing to be selected for the Capitol touring company... as if she would've ever learned from him the art of dance. "You don't know what's it like to not have anything. You don't know what it's like to _work_," she gets directly in his face, but he does not back down.

Her hands are stitched and scared and picked apart by thorns, gloves doing nothing, they're only a flimsy shield to the blisters that appear on the crook of her thumb from holding the hoe or the shovel. It does not protect her from the Peacekeeper whip that lashes against her back when she wipes at her forehead with her hand, for she's 'slacking' off. It does not stop the burns that lace her arm from the long hours in the sun, or the fact that her name is on seven additional strips from the requiring of tesserae. Vanya has never gone hungry, she's damn certain of it, and he might be skinny to some degree, but he's never seen the skinny that some of her coworkers suffer from, where they collapse into the dirt, exhausted and sunburned. Zola feels their bodies under her feet, sometimes they're just buried there and the family never knows... her tears have long since dried, and people like Vanya are not going to make those tears just rewind back into her tear ducts.

Vanya stands up off the couch at this point, his eyes wide and sulfurous in anger. Zola steps back slightly, tightening her grip on the Riding Hood basket. She expects him to wither and decay away into the leather cushions, not actually get to his feet. "I'll have you know I worked my ass off to become the dancer I am today. It took me years and years of dedication and practice."

"And money," Zola scowls, but she does not get any closer. "I am sure you did indeed work for your technique and abilities you have, but you are still a silver tongued Capitol dog," she crosses her arms over her chest. "Meanwhile, I've toiled the fields for my family. I've seen things you could never imagine; I've dealt with things you could never imagine."

"I don't know about that," Vanya tilts his head to the side, eyes glinting at her, looking like a cat. "I can imagine quite a lot."

She has to try her hardest not to scream. This is not her, the combativeness isn't her, but it seems that her special little district partner in his tutu and ballet slippers just has a way of twisting the knife so she feels it in her sleep. "You're going to die, Vanya. The Careers will find you to be an easy target, and no matter how many people in the Capitol love you, they won't be able to save you from a knife to the eye," Zola lifts her head up, trying to bulk herself up some, for she has a few inches on him. "You can take all of your money, Vanya, and shove it up your ass."

He shakes his head, chuckling to himself. "Oh, Zola... you really don't understand how this works, do you?" Vanya matches her likewise, startling her slightly, as she is sure, certain truly, that the argument had been hers. They were doing so nice in the beginning, weren't they? She tries to imagine what his perfect face would look like with blood droplets running down his face, staining his porcelain skin, but the image is not coming to the forefront. He holds her hands in his, hers blistered and chalky, his smooth as glass, dripping in cold, the wealth visible just by the cleanness of his fingernail beds. "I will, and I _can _destroy you. Every single second of mine here before the arena, I can spend it ruining you, ruining the Zola Taonga and her _stupid _hair. You don't want to make an enemy out of me; I have power, my dear."

She is not sure what exactly is what breaks her and causes her mind to be consumed with a supernova wave of rage. She's uncertain if it is the very threat of ruining her - not likely, she's been whipped and punched and starved; what would a few insults actually do? - or the fact he patronizingly calls her, _my dear, _or if it would be the desecration of her heritage. If he had touched her dreadlocks, to make a mockery of her family and the past due to the color of her skin, she might've slit his throat then and there with the edges of one of the pillows.

Zola takes a deep breath, looking down at the floor abashedly. "You're right, Vanya," and before he can say another word, she clubs him in the face with her basket, and despite it being empty, it manages to cause him to sway. The hit dazes him slightly, he letting go of her, she stepping back away from him. She wants to bash him in the head again and again and again and again, and maybe then she'll see those crimson droplets stain his ruined complexion, a disposition of anguish and pain as she topples the elitist from his golden pedestal. She turns away from him, as Vanya curses rapidly, bringing a hand to his face. "Have a good evening," she tells him, as she walks to her room. "The next time you threaten me, I won't just hit you with a basket," she threatens, hoping it hangs on the air in her wake.

Although she does not see it, Vanya removes his hand from his cheek, the skin a taut pink, he glaring in her direction. "I'll ruin you, Taonga!" he shouts at her. "You better watch your back in that arena!"

She hears him, but she pretends that she doesn't. Zola enters her bedroom, slipping the Red Riding Hood outfit off, standing in just her underwear in her room. She looks at the basket, the one she had just used to hit Vanya in the face with, and smiles to herself.

Zola might need to keep this thing with her at all times.

* * *

**Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #12: Their Exposed Identities, the tribute parade! Every chariot team got their outfit revealed: which one was your favorite, or which several? We have also stepped into the next phase of the storyline where we are at the Pre-Game portion in the Capitol. We have met another trio of tributes, and we have, again, Magdalena Bertha, a thief, created by Tiger outsider from District 8, Aris Lindel, a good ole' Career, created by grimbutnotalways from District 2, and Zola Taonga, a hard working lower-class girl, created by Apple1230 from District 11. We've also gotten a glimpse, briefly into Cambric from District 8, and some more glimpses at Maren and Vanya from Two and Eleven respectively. A lot of lost love between our tribute pairs, wouldn't you say, huh?**

**There are eight more tributes to be introduced, which will be done for Chapters 14 and 16 respectively, four tributes split between the chapters (4 and 4), but next chapter, #13, we are going to step back into the Capitol plot, as there are things afoot, things happening and running in the darkness and behind the scenes. For those not aware, this is the formula I employed for Sheep Led to Slaughter, where I would have a tribute chapter and then a Capitol chapter, of often smaller length, and I'd alternate back and forth as I told two separate stories at the same time... these are going to eventually bleed together, so bear with me. Chapter #13: Talks of Treason, again, will be a continuation of the Capitol side of things.**

**Also, to mention, if you are interested in doing so, there is a thing going on for the SYOT Alliance Forum under the Hunger Games tab for the 2019 SYOT Awards. If you haven't already, check the page out and think about nominating: you cannot, however, nominate something that is already added to the list, but the mods there can do a lot more helping out with that. I am privileged and honored to have Sheep Led to Slaughter up potentially for awards, but there are many other deserving stories and things out there that may not get nominated unless YOU do, so go out and do it! **

**I'll get out of your hair, I promise you; please, please review, as it'd mean a lot to me, cause golly, we've broken through 100 reviews already which is pretty damn great. Thank you all for your support, it makes this a lot easier, I swear. I hope you all have a wonderful day! I love you all so much! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	13. Talks of Treason (Capitol Plot I)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #13: Talks of Treason. Last chapter, #12, was the tribute parade where we met another three tributes in the stack, the 14th-16th tributes to be introduced: Magdalena Bertha of District 8, Aris Lindel of District 2, and Zola Taonga of District 11. There are eight more tributes to introduce, but that will not be happening this _time, _eight tributes will be introduced over two training chapters. Like I did for the story that this is a sequel too, Sheep Led to Slaughter, I had chapters focused solely, or mostly focused on the Capitol cast interspersed throughout, and this is picking up off where we left off at after Chapter 6, but following the events of the previous chapter. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #13: Talks of Treason.**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, do not put treasonous thoughts unto me, for I do not know what I will do with them._

**_Criston Pellock: Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games_**

* * *

He is finally legal now to order a drink; he no longer needs to send his friends up the river to buy him alcohol. He feels like he's sitting at the big boy table - Criston promises that he'll never use the phrase 'big boy' ever again when thinking in his head - but he supposes that the bar can work for the metaphor too. The now turned twenty-one year old, the victor of the 92nd year of the Hunger Games, at thirteen, from District 6, looks away aimlessly, a jacket slung over his shoulders, protecting his small frame, which is oddly cold despite it being in the middle of August. He's always found the Capitol to be cold, but Criston has never been able to pinpoint a reason. Perhaps it is because anything good-natured and warm has the life sucked out of it the moment they step over the threshold, a hard-lined border drawn in the sand, with platinum plates pressed over it to define the space. It doesn't matter, truthfully, and all he knows is that whenever he is in the city, which he is trying to find excuses to have happen less and less while he's at it, some piece of him is missing.

Criston checks his watch again, scoffing. He's late, late, late, _late, _and he's starting to wonder why he even has these meetings with him anymore. Lance Viel isn't necessarily known for his accuracy and precision, but he's generally been reliant in terms of promptness. The victor shakes his head, pulling the beer he had just bought closer to him, the glass chilled, a frosty ring dancing around the lip of the bottle, amber liquid sloshing back and forth in its prison. Criston lifts the bottle to his mouth, about to take a sip, when a hand clamps down on his shoulder, scaring him. Criston sputters, beer sloshing out and into his lap, splashing over his pants. He curses, dabbing at the wetness with a napkin. He looks up, scowling at the figure who just startled him, the new arrival pulling up a chair and sitting in it.

"Sorry for being late," the District 1 victor, Lance Viel, apologizes, a smug smile plastered across his face. Criston shakes his head, bunching up the napkin, discarding it away from him, not seeing where it falls. A bandage is placed on Lance's nose, as if someone flattened a piece of paper and left it there to rest on his face. A few scars that have now dried remain on his cheeks, crusted over in bits of ruby flesh. "Sorry about the spill."

The other victor gives a grunt of approval, setting the beer down on the table, it making a _chink _noise as it collides with the granite countertop. That noise is music to Criston's ears, from the hours in his workshop, bent over a workbench with a hammer and an anvil, battering away whatever piece of steel is next on the list. He is unsure, however, if the sound of steel striking steel being a comforting thought is disturbing or not; he doesn't flinch anymore when a Career fights some poor lackey from an outer district, getting run through with the blade, steel singing on steel echoing out into the vicinity. "S'okay," he grins abashedly, "I'll just let my designer know you ruined a great pair of pants," he gets another napkin, wiping at his face. "What kept you?"

"The kids," Lance says, hailing down the bartender for a glass of water - "_Casual," Criston thinks to himself _\- and taking a napkin as well. "Cyril had problems with us having them almost naked for the parade, and Satin said she was uncomfortable too about the whole thing yet neither one of them said something when getting dressed," Lance burps into his fist. "Kevia and I had to promise them that they wouldn't be naked for the Interviews."

"No Emmett?" Criston frowns. "I thought he was mentoring the boy, not you."

"Not the boy," Lance corrects. "His _son,_" and Criston nods at that. Another burp, Lance making a face. "He never bothered to show up for the parade, anyways. He shored himself up somewhere with a bottle and a steak," he runs a hand through his hair, spiky and dark brown, his face illuminated in the light of the bar, the ebb and flow of the other Capitol patrons in their outlandish outfits strewing about. Criston's learned not to pay them any mind anymore; they look and act silly, but none of them know any better, truly he believes that. "I then stopped by District 10's floor but couldn't stay for long," the glass of water arrives at his spot. "The two were in an argument about something and I didn't care to listen to it."

"What floor are you actually sleeping on?"

"Ten's," Lance takes a sip of the water, moving the napkin to rest the glass on. "They actually have an open bed for me, and mine is being used by Emmett's, if he ever actually sleeps in it." A sigh, exalting and wonderful. Criston closes his eyes, absorbing the sound. Given the fact Lance is nearing his early forties, he's practically old enough to be his father if he were born young. He's missed the older victor, practically adopting him to be a father figure for reasons he can't explain. Lance goes for another drink. "How about yours?"

Criston taps his fingers on the stone, balling his tongue on the side of his mouth. "Well... they definitely hate each other..." Lance raises an eyebrow, motioning for him to continue, the glass at his lips. The victor from Six sighs. "She's a Peacekeeper."

Lance chokes on his drink, gasping and setting it down while water dribbles down his chin. "What?" he asks a moment after recuperating. There's a look of disbelief in his eyes, one of shock. This a wrench in their plans, something he didn't expect. "I- she's a _Peacekeeper?_" Criston nods at the question. "I mean, shit," he says, after a pause, "I knew we might have some tributes that support the Capitol, but I was expecting it from my group. What about the boy?"

"He comes from money, some artisan family," Criston says. "So, they're both potentially lost causes. Wealth generally means Capitol supporter."

Criston recalls his reaping day as if it were just hours ago, but in truth it has been nine years, and the nine years have stuck with him like leather to his back after sitting on a couch. It is not sunny outside, but snowing, _snowing _in the middle of August, some sort of freak storm, and Criston is not just dressed for the weather, shivering in short sleeves as the escort picks his name from the ball of punishment. On camera, he looks like an easy target, shivering and crying and begging for something else to take him, but that is a whole different story in the arena. He hadn't known the power inside him until the gong rings out, and the soles of his shoes connect to grass and he dives for some other unsuspecting kid rummaging through a bag that is _his, _not theirs, and before they can beg for mercy, he's slit their throat. Criston gets four kills under his belt, at thirteen, and although none of them had been Careers, it is still something that causes his hands to shake. His very own devices have ended lives.

"Not always," Lance reminds him, wiping up the water that he had spilled.

"That reminds me!" Criston perks up, having forgotten something, but the conversation on wealth and power being Capitol supporters switches it up for him. He digs into his jacket pockets, he wearing some leather overhang thing which is a bit bulky on his shoulders, but he appreciates the extra weight on his shoulders. "I was given this by the boy from District 9. His name's Jason," and he withdraws a crumpled up white note of sorts, handwriting in ink scrawled along the surface, smeared a bit by what looks like a person's hand. "He's the mayor's kid from there."

Lance takes the note, looking at it, scanning it over once, not needing another glance, before handing it back to Criston, who places it back in his pocket. "No..." the victor hangs onto the sentence some, dropping his voice a bit. "So that means-"

Criston looks around to make sure no one else is privy to their conversation; the bartender is speaking to a couple sitting on the other end, and there's no one else in the spotty bar. Two victors interacting in the Capitol is no longer a sight to be feared, no longer a sight anyone cares about anymore, as the Rodney administration allowed them to come and go practically as they pleased... Criston knows it is because there's an obligation to come back. That one in twenty-four chance of having that unlucky - always unlucky, always unlucky, no matter how indoctrinated they are; that is a feeling Criston will never shake - twelve to eighteen year old in their grasp survive the horrors of an arena. It is what makes him come back, night after night, looking up at the stars whenever he falls asleep, through the glass domed roof. It is what stops him from using the razor elsewhere than just to trim his beard, something he always likes keeping short, never having it grow. Lance prefers to be clean shaven too.

The coast is clear, the victor leaning in. "It means District 9 is on our side. They're gonna join the fight. Eleven and Twelve are also already behind us." Criston watches as Lance takes a deep breath, exhaling heavily. Criston wanted to cry when Jason gave him the note, he wants to cry _now _just saying that aloud, knowing what had been written on the card. The fact that the kid, sixteen years old and shivering and terrified out of his mind, approaches him on his floor, is enough of a testament. Criston has to hold himself for hugging Jason, for that'd be too weird. It helps put down the razor, for sure, and Criston has a reason to keep staring at the stars at night.

Lance sits back in his chair, mouth parted open halfway, eyes wide. He shakes his head, and perhaps it is out of disbelief, but it must be a good disbelief. "It might happen. It might actually happen," he rubs his forehead, setting one elbow down on the counter. "I never would've thought I'd have seen this in my lifetime."

"I wouldn't get your hopes up just yet," Criston reminds the other victor. There's an odd instance of this happening every once in awhile, where Criston finds himself in a league of older victors being the voice of reason, being the one with the most wisdom despite everyone else having at least twice his life on him, with years and years of experience under the Capitol's firm might, under the brutality of the Hunger Games slaughtering children for sport. There's something that sits on his mind, but he isn't sure if he should voice it or not. He runs a hand through his dark hair, jet black and long, starting to curl when it reaches a certain point, the darkness that accentuates the paleness of his face. Rebellion doesn't brood in him, this lanky little guy from Six.

"You're right, Lance says solemnly. "You're right." The tone in his voice is one of hurt, and Criston partially feels bad for the bringing down of the other man's high; he seldom sees Lance Viel brighten up out of happiness.

There's something else he has to give Lance, the actual reason why he and him were even meeting in a terrible bar downtown. "I have something else for you," he says, looking around again. Coast is still clear. He digs into his jacket pocket again, pulling out a box wrapped up in a brown sort of covering, like wrapping paper. Lance leans back some as Criston withdraws his hand, setting it in the other victor's grasp. Criston looks at Lance, a heaviness building behind his stare. Lance goes to undo the paper, but the younger victor inhales sharply. "Don't unwrap it here!" he yells a bit louder than he'd like, but the music drowns out his voice, and the bartender does not perk his head up over in his perch, the man washing away at empty wine glasses. Lance lifts his hands up and off the package. "It was a bitch getting all the materials he needed."

"How'd you get it?" Lance asks. A look of hesitance is reflected in his eyes.

A pang of emotion runs through Criston, a single bead of sweat trickling down his face. He takes another sip of his beer, the frosted ring having finally melted. The alcohol tastes stale in the back of his throat, pink flesh swamped in a sea of turgid brown. He shuffles his hands back into the leather jacket. "You don't want to know..." and a shake of his head. "It doesn't matter."

"Doesn't matter?" the other victor echoes, furrowing his eyebrows together.

"Can you get it to him or not?" Criston asks sharply, leaning into Lance's personal space, his eyes focused, hazel piercing out under the guise of the bar's lights. "Can you deliver the package to Rennie or not?" There's another pause, but Criston doesn't let Lance answer just yet. "I'm sorry, Lance, but we're gonna have to make movements or something eventually. We have Hale and Hector in prison and we can't even get them out. Arizona's dead and now we have a mute, an _avox, _being the person we're supposed to have our faith in!" he throws his hands up in exasperation, this perking the bartender's head up by the anguish expelled. Criston sets his hands back down, turning to Lance. "I can't keep doing this game of secrecy for too much longer. Can you get that to Rennie or not?"

"I can," Lance says immediately, no added hesitation whatsoever, and the other victor nods. "I have my ways."

Criston balls his tongue on the side of his mouth again, fully zipping up the leather jacket, despite it being a humid August night. "I just want a life, Lance. My youth has been stolen from me by presidents in high places, and it looks like my adulthood is resting on a mute gaining the ability to speak without his _fucking _tongue. I'd really appreciate a miracle here. Good night."

He does not care if Lance has a response for him or not. It will not assuage anything, and Criston is not sure he wants anyone to assuage his fears or worries any longer.

Whatever happens, whether things end up in a fiery blaze of death or in a golden haven shining down on Panem, Criston knows that he can no longer abode talks of treason on his mind any longer. He _needs _to be the treason.

* * *

**_Constantine Fallorne: Head Gamemaker P.O.V_**

* * *

The other Gamemakers and employees on the staff have gone home hours ago, hours and hours ago when the Capitol streets and the main avenue down to the training center are abandoned. The streets are empty, pitch black roads covered in balloons and streamers, a plethora of cardinal, sunburst, navy, and other various colors of plastic piled into one slag heap, a pile of bodies left out to rot in the baking son. The stands and bleachers are empty too, covered in ribbons that blow in the wind, akin to a mummy drenched in the colors of the rainbow as if the mummy had been disassembled. Head Gamemaker Constantine Fallorne stares at the monitors, only a few working showing the live feed of the City Circle and the remnants of the tribute parade. She's now slipped out of her sleazy outfit, something low-cut, but it had been all for nothing. No one showed her any sign of attention; they're all distracted, their heads had been solely focused, gazes as well, on the tributes and their wonderful chariots and bizarre outfits.

Lewlyn Davis's stomping grounds are all hers, now, and that thought settles well in her head. She appreciates the opportunity, sure, but it doesn't fully register until tonight, when she is standing in the center of the room commanding the other workers what to do, telling Avoxes to quit their yapping, sternly telling subordinates to behave... the power crackles in her throat. Constantine is damn proud to be a Capitolite, as she stares at the Panem logo plastered everywhere over the city circle in all of its golden glory. She shudders at the very notion of being born as a district citizen, people who are ungrateful at the opportunity presented to them. Panem is a place full of life and opportunity, and that Lewlyn Davis planned to snuff it all out in the smolder of a cigarette... oh _no, _Constantine could not have that. Now, the redheaded bitch is dead, her blood soaking the soil and the bathroom tile of the very room Constantine moves into, for posterity sake. If the Head Gamemaker has lived in that apartment, in that room, for years and years, why shouldn't she?

Any person who says they hate Panem is just dishonest, but Constantine has ways for people to tell the truth. There is the occasional excessive vomiting and bleeding from the eyes as well, but she tries not to focus or dwell on the gore aspects too much when she has to dabble in that department. Her hair is tied into a silvery bun, sheaths of moonlight covering her tanned back, she dressed down in a more conservative looking outfit in case she decides to go elsewhere, but it is late, past midnight now, and the citizens have tired themselves out. She's tired _herself _out at this point, but it is what the job demands. She turns the monitors off, pausing though, as she leans forward, lifting her head up, looking through one of the blank monitors, the world's reflection staring back at her in its abyss shroud. Someone's here, and the sound of their dress shoes on the tile certainly announced their arrival, but Constantine figures it is just something she's hearing in her head - it would not be the first time, she chuckles to herself sardonically - and now she _sees _them.

She keeps her back turned however, as the person walks to the center of the upper level staircase, hands gripping the railing, pale hands, dark hair, oceanic blue eyes, and a gorgeous suit of alternating shades between crimson and silver... Master of Ceremonies Pollux Aetos. He stands tall on his perch, clasping the railing and pattering his hands on the metal, whistling to himself. She cannot place the tune, for he is not whistling the Panemian theme that she adores, with its boastful snare drums and trumpet sound, but perhaps it does not matter. He's infringing on her sanctuary, and she does not want him here. She doesn't want him within a mile radius of the building, but that would mean he couldn't do his job, and everyone has to do their job in Panemian society or the beating heart will not thrive. He makes his way down the steps on the left side, her right, fingers trailing along the banister, he still whistling whatever that ingratiating tune was.

"I'm surprised to see you here," Constantine says, opening the door for conversation, she turning to him, hands still splayed out on the console, fingers stretched towards buttons that could alert Peacekeepers of any known threat. She is unable to determine, at the moment, if Pollux Aetos is someone that should be considered a threat.

He is a devilishly handsome man, but he's way too young for her, and also, as she's upset to find out through scandalous gossip, a fruited individual who does not prefer the company of a woman, but if Constantine wants to be honest with herself, he'd never be able to handle her anyways. He smiles at her after her statement, a flawless smile riddled with anguish and plasticity, enough so that Constantine can smell the manufactured quality on his breath despite not having said a word. "I just wanted to get a last look at Lewlyn's office before the rest of the ceremonies. It might be my last time ever seeing it," Pollux does a bit of a spin, gaze looking up at the ceiling, through the glass dome that shows the night sky; she's certain that it is Aquarius as the constellation that can be seen.

Her pulse in her neck spasms some, she slapping her skin, a jangled bracelet hanging off of her wrist jingling in the air, but the moment she touches the pulse, her left eye starts to do it instead. She wrings her hands together, leeching herself off of the counter, the firmness on her back disappearing. "It's my office now, Pollux."

He wags a finger at her - _wags, _Constantine's eyes widen, erupting in a volcanic fury - and there's a smaller smile now on his face, as if he is trying to apologize to her, but cannot keep the humor from peeking through. "She held this office for twenty plus years, Constantine. You've held it for a week. You're gonna need to prove yourself before you can just say this is yours now," his eyes are disapproving; she doesn't want his damned approval. "You of all people would know about Panemian legacy."

She laughs, but her laugh is no airy sort of ordeal, it is a harsh bark bray that causes the windows to vibrate and her soul to rattle in her ribcage, a prison of bones and scarred, tarred over flesh. "Are you mocking me due to my age?"

"You're no spring chicken," Pollux jests, but the barb is sharp enough for the glint in his eyes is there, it is always there, when he sits in that stupid chair of his. Constantine could pluck his head off in one twist and he'd die, squabbling in his jokes and his jests and his disorderly perfectionism.

Constantine crosses her arms again, chewing on the inside of her cheek. She could trade insults back and forth with him all night if she had to, but she does not know if she has the personal strength to do that any longer, for there are several other people that genuinely need her attention and counsel, and she cannot be a husk in their presence if she wastes it all on a comedian who lost his calling. Something else does pique her interest, however, at the fact he mentions it might be the last time he ever sees the Gamemaker Center. "You came by because this might be the last time you ever see the Gamemaker Center. Why's that?"

He shrugs. It's always a shrug. That's how Constantine knows she's nabbed him, the little twat, with his incessant shrugging. "Just cause. I don't come by here often, anyways and with Lewlyn gone and you in her shoes, I see even less reason to do so."

"And Rennie Davis," the Head Gamemaker adds.

It is as if she sucked the entire room's supply of air in that sentence. Pollux freezes in mid reply, mouth hanging half open, eyes turned to narrow slits. Constantine rocks back and forth some. The Avox's name - ex-Avox, she has to remind herself, but what does it matter anymore? - is something that is not uttered any longer in the Capitol, ever since his stunt a week ago, and his now known stunt yesterday at the reaping, with the broadcasting of his message and all. "_It is propaganda,_" Constantine tells herself. "_Propaganda and nothing more. A laughable attempt to desecrate the peace._"

Pollux sits back on the electronic display projection which would be what shows the arena when the arena is actually in play, Constantine's neck vibrating again in annoyance, for he is sitting on _her _property. The blatant disrespect is blatant. "What are you trying to say, Constantine?"

It is now her turn to shrug, to see if she can gauge a reaction, but he's unmovable, lips do not even flinch, nor do his eyes have any sort of reaction. He's good, dammit, he's very good, but she is sparring mentally with the very face of Panem after all; she is potentially outclassed, and that'd be a first. "I know you were fond of the Davis twins. I used to think you hated Lewlyn, but you look at her with a fondness now that I am not sure where it came from. And Rennie, well, we all know that-"

"Yes, he and I slept together," he crosses his arms too, and the jovial look on his face vanishes as if it hadn't existed in the first place. "Once, and it was over, and we weren't meant to be a thing, and it happened while he had still been in Lewlyn's service," Pollux furrows his eyebrows together. "What are you trying to imply?"

"Nothing," Constantine says affably, throwing a hand to the air. Pollux scoffs at that, shaking his head. She locks her jaw, looking back at him, the blaze returning. "I simply do not understand your behavior, Pollux, that is all. Your behavior doesn't make sense to me, to have an attraction or attachment to an Avox, who is of way lower social class than you. You hated his sister, for she had been the one to mutilate him into the thing he is now, and yet you now look at her in a nostalgic sense," she winks at him, and that does a get a rise out of the interviewer, for his forehead turns a bright shade of pink, salmon-colored. "To some, it'd look suspicious."

"Not as suspicious as sleeping in Lewlyn's very quarters, the same quarters she had been murdered in," Pollux points out. "It's a two way street."

"I'm simply doing it for posterity sake," Constantine sniffs.

"It looks like a cover-up, and you know it."

"Have you seen him?" she asks suddenly, picking at her fingernails.

Pollux frowns, resting again on the electronic display. Constantine can see his bodily reflection in the chromed floors, and the man is swinging his feet back and forth like a child. "Seen who?"

"Rennie, Pollux," Constantine tilts her head to the side a little. "Don't play stupid with me here; we both know you're smart enough to not to do that, and I'm smart enough to not have someone play me for an idiot."

He smiles, this one full of teeth and fangs, as if he were going to rip her throat out. Constantine wants to wrap one of the mummy rainbow colored streamers around his neck and choke him to death, but the opportunity is not presenting itself. "You overestimate yourself, Ms. Fallorne," now he no longer uses her first name, a reminder of her failures as a wife, and her eye begins to twitch again. "And no, I haven't. I have not seen or interacted with him, and I would turn him in the moment I did should that ever happen. He's a rebel and a threat to the stability in our already tumultuous period right now."

"Some would say otherwise, Mr. Aetos." If he can play this game, she'll play it too. She'll play it till the rooster crows and the cows come home; she'll play it while he thrashes underneath her, fingers digging into his pulse points as she chokes the life out of him, hissing and screaming that he's the idiot, he's the damned idiot in this chess game.

Pollux hops off of the digital display board, which she is immensely grateful for, but he does turn around and walk away like she expects. Constantine braces herself for the overwhelming smell of cologne, rubber, and plastic as he approaches her, having plenty of inches on her, but all she does is smile up at him, in case he needs any motherly attention or love. She has no kids, and she's never looked into adopting any children. Her legacy does not have to be in the people that come out of her, but in what she does, and Panem will look favorably on hers when she's gone. Can anyone say the same for Pollux? Can anyone say the same for the now dead Head Gamemaker, her throat slit as she bathed in a tub, or for her brother, a vigilante on the run?

He is now in her personal space, his breath smelling of mint juleps and tangerines. "There's a war coming, Constantine. I am able to read the terrain, knowing what entertainment feeds out of the districts, what people say and do and think... I can read and hear it all, and there's something on the horizon that I am not so sure Bonnie is aware of," that is the first mention of Madam President Rodney in their entire spat, which surprises Constantine, as she's always thought the ex-Mutts designer, now turned politician had always been close with the interviewer. "You and I need to make sure we're on the right side of it when someone comes calling for our heads."

"How do you approach me with this?" she asks, her eyes gleaning now, a playful emotion hiding behind the gaze. "As a warning?"

"As a friendly giving of advice," Pollux reasons.

Constantine clears her throat, stepping up just a bit higher in her heels, which she is still wearing, so she's a bit more level with Pollux, who towers over her. She grips his shoulder, so he's incapable of moving away from her, and so she has his attention, her grip tight on the bone, fingers wrapping around the clavicle in case she wishes to rip it off of him. "If there is a war, Mr. Aetos, between us and the rebels, and hypothetically the rebels did win in some bloody, grueling conquest and we were to both make out of it alive, you honestly think the districts would spare you? You think they would spare the face and voice of Panem?" she leans back onto her normal footing, entirely incapable of reading Pollux's expression, which is an odd mix of disturbed and shocked, but she is unsure which is winning out in the battle. "They'd tear you up limb by limb," Constantine smiles sweetly. "You've seen Rennie Davis. You're in contact with him. And," she holds out the 'and', holding up a finger. "I think you're in cahoots with him, my dear Mr. Aetos."

Pollux stays rigid, smiling himself, and there's a lightness in his smile, as if it is actually genuine. "Good night, Ms. Fallorne."

"Good night," Constantine says aversely, stepping back and turning around to view the monitors.

That is enough of a dismissal for Pollux in case he needs one, going back the way he came, his dress shoes still making echoes on the tile, until he is out the door, and his voice hangs in a cruel whisper around the circuit boards. The Head Gamemaker smiles to herself again, lowering her head so she can rest her chin against as close to her sternum as she can, enjoying the stretch of her neck.

She's going to nail Pollux Aetos, the Master of Ceremonies and bloodbaths and humiliations to a tree, hands and feet pinned back, and his body split open like one of the balloons lining the street.

She'll pin all of Panem if she has to.

* * *

**_Valencia Shale: Victor of the 100th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

The noise and energy of the evening still rings in her ears, and no matter how hard she swallows or how hard she chews, she is incapable of drowning out the noise. Valencia squeezes her eyes shut, and no matter what, she is incapable of getting her own Tribute Parade out of her own head, in her wedding gown made of ivory and silk, to her district partner - the same district partner who betrays the Careers, the one who haunts her in the valley of mirrors with his poisonous tone - in his fine-pressed white suit, or the sweet little boy from Seven, dressed handsomely like a moving ember through a forest, or the boy from Eight, made up to be some button or shirt accessory... and they're gone, all gone, dead and gone, like twenty-three of those individuals she sees on their own chariots tonight, waving to the crowd, soaking up the love, and she has to scream into the crook of her arm when no one else notices, for she is incapable of holding the anguished cry in any longer.

It has been several hours since the Parade has ended, Bonnie retiring to her room and shutting the door, not allowing any visitors. Valencia steps out of her dress, letting it fall in a heap on the floor. It is also added in Bonnie's request that she stand with Hector and Hale that during the Games she is to stay in the mansion and not her home. The shadows are strange on the walls, unfamiliar designs and patterns that speak a foreign language to her. Her weak cries from the nightmares do not bounce along the walls, as if the sound is absorbed into the plaster and held there. No one comes running to her aid, but no one comes to her aid back in her glass house either. It feels different, however, stuck in the presidential mansion, to have an army of servants, those that speak and do not speak, but Valencia feels trapped and incapable of expressing herself to anyone, as if anyone would be able to listen. The sheets stay up, always.

Valencia lays in bed, eyes wide open, staring up at the ceiling. She can hear Bonnie's chatter through the walls, she on the phone with someone. The victor wants to shut the door and finally be able to get some damn rest - apparently she is supposed to mentor the District 2 girl, Maren, she thinks her name is, but Bonnie shuts that down before it can come to fruition; Valencia Shale is only working the president, her mentorship duties will come later - but if she does that, then she'll have to sleep with the light on, for none filters in through the window in the bedroom she's occupying. The darkness is no longer her friend, although they hadn't been friends _ever. _In the darkness lies blades waiting to snag her skin, or claws that keep her in their grasp. Darkness resembles the Hall of Mystery, with its cracked mirrors and ghostly apparitions. Valencia is incapable of falling asleep without a light source, and her wide open door is that light source.

She is also incapable of getting Hale and Hector's looks out of her thoughts. When she sees the two victors, Valencia expects to see two mangled beyond belief victors standing with her up on the high rise above the City Circle. Although there certainly are bruises and dark circles underneath both of their eyes, from the accounts and whispers she hears from the mansion staff and Bonnie's general musings when she speaks aloud, that both would have missing limbs or teeth or _something, _but the two simply look damaged. A week plus in the Capitol punishment system has not treated them well, but they're traitors, so it's what she expects.

"_They're not traitors," _she tells herself. "_You know that, you're just too afraid to admit it, Val,_" the victor scolds herself. It's true. She knows the truth. Everyone knows the truth, that these two random victors from Two and Ten didn't just murder two of the most influential people in the entire history of Panem, didn't end a person's presidency and a Gamemaker term, there's just no way that the Merviere siblings nor Hale Cornerstone had that power in them... but Valencia is too scared to say anything. One look from Bonnie is enough to cause her to swallow her pride, a pride she used to feel accomplished for owning, for having. "The same pride that caught nearly a half of my alliance killed," she mutters into the bedsheet, "The same pride that forced me to hallucinate... the same pride that caused me to break my left hand," she shakes her head, biting down with her incisors on her lip. She can feel the dull throbbing sometimes in her hand; she'll never be able to write the same exact way ever again, but she's not sure how devastated to feel about that unlike her hair color being changed.

Valencia throws the covers off, sitting up in her pajamas, a sheen and sheer thing of cotton and ivory, glistening like a silvery wave with the chandelier lights bouncing on the material. She steps into the living room - the mansion layout is rather bizarre, she'll give it that, but in its oddness it feels unique and organic - barefoot. She is not going to spend the time trying to find her shoes, and she is not going to wear heels. Truth be told, Valencia has no idea why she gets out of bed, as it is not for her to close her bedroom door; she'll never be able to go to bed then. Bonnie's voice, warm and joyous, comes from her open office, all the lights on, the power of the sun emanating from the wooden walled room. Valencia crosses across the living room. She looks adjacently, off to the right, into one of the corners. The stain is gone, as she noticed it last time, as that it is the spot where Arizona had shot Calhoun - "_Not Arizona, Val. You know who shot him..._" the voice comes again - and the now deceased president had slumped up against the wall.

The victor approaches the entrance to the office, Bonnie coming into view. The president has had a drink or two, but Valencia refuses any of the glasses given to her. The last time she had alcohol, Persephone Castor, the girl from Two, hugged and kissed her in a moment of sadness... Valencia is not experiencing another tender moment like that ever again; it brings out a side of her the girl never knew existed, a vulnerability of closeness. Valencia Shale does not get close. She is now standing directly in the doorway, Bonnie twirling round and round in her chair, eyebrows raising the moment her eyes seize the girl. She raises a finger, to motion a pause, crooking further into the telephone nestled into her neck.

"Uh huh," Bonnie says, her tone sounding as uninterested as the sentence made it seem. "Well, thank you Lazarus. Good work today," she nods, sucking her bottom lip into her mouth, eyes widening in annoyance. "Right. Yeah, you too." There's another raise of her finger. "Good night, Lazarus." She hangs up the phone, setting it down, spinning round to full view to give Valencia her complete attention. Valencia takes the president in entirely, for she is a gorgeous woman in an absolutely stunning outfit that she is honestly slight jealous at, the white cut-off in all of its chicness. "Did I wake you?" Bonnie asks, her tone warm and kind, as if she had a spoonful of yogurt in her mouth while talking.

Valencia shakes her head in dissent. "Couldn't sleep." Something nags at her, for a second, as she notices it when the president hung up the phone. The first name basis with the Head of the Peacekeepers, Bonnie's general of defense or somesuch other titles that honestly don't mean much in the grand scheme of things. Valencia has had an encounter or two with him, nothing short of brusque, yet polite, but she does not trust him and all of his solid stone perfectionism; he may have been a man from District 2, but Valencia sees the Capitol polish on his armor, it sending ripples through her back. "You're on a first name basis with Mr. Pietro?" It shouldn't bother her, but it slightly does, if she is to be honest with herself. She's never heard anyone else spoken to by their first name except for Pollux in the time she's been around Bonnie; it is something generally reserved for her, always _Valencia, _and never Miss Shale. It makes her feel special, and now the blonde haired witch has snatched something away from her, as per the usual.

Bonnie smiles wryly. "He's a friend, Valencia. I technically am not working right now and neither is he."

She nods, but does not believe that one bit. "_More than a friend?" _she wants to ask aloud, but that'll certainly have her whipped come morning, so that is crossed off the list. Valencia looks over in the corner, the swinging motorized crib that had been for her and Calhoun's baby is missing. Valencia is in love with the little girl, now three months old, with her cooing face and those sweet, lovely pinchable cheeks, but it is not her kid. She knows that Bonnie loves the girl too, for it is her daughter after all, but there's a sense of divide between her as a mother and her as a ruler, as if she is unsure how to do both. It is not Valencia's place to mention it, and she knows it, for that'll garner a single solidary silver bullet to the head. "Where's she sleeping?"

The two of them - that being Bonnie and Calhoun, when he'd been alive - decide to not choose the name of their daughter; she'll pick for herself when she decides what her name should be. It makes it a bit difficult for Valencia in referring to her, but it is what the parents wish and Bonnie is not going to step over what her husband had decided in the hospital room the night of her birth. Bonnie looks over at the vacant spot, motioning with her hand. "She was put to bed around eight, before the parade, and two of the nurses are in her room now. I'll make sure to see her before I go to bed," Bonnie swivels in her chair some, and Valencia finds it hard to find her threatening in this state, this foolish girl like state as if she's gone back in time, but even behind the sweetness, there's that glint of malice that is ever present. Valencia feels it scraping over her arms. The president places both of her hands on the table. "What's on your mind? I can tell you're thinking about something."

It is a trait of Bonnie's, one Valencia hates. The woman is always able to tell when someone is thinking about something, and generally able to draw that out. Valencia takes a deep breath, turning around and closing the door. The wing they're in is empty, but she does it regardless; should anything go wrong, Valencia is certain she can take a woman in her forties drunk off of some scotch and whiskey. Standing up with the president is an honor, and Valencia does not want to dismiss that, but she is not going to sit by and let herself be dragged through the mud with perceived traitors. She's a newly crowned victor of the Hunger Games, having won a Quarter Quell with a personal voting aspect put to the forefront, where her life is on the line both times the voting comes up... there's decency and a need for her name to be respected in this.

She did not get up just to complain about the talking.

Her throat burns as if she is the one that had downed the whiskey, Valencia looking like a raggedy Ann doll compared to Bonnie's gown of impressive silk. She files her nails together, opting to stand. Sitting is a sign of weakness, Bonnie being a bloodhound who'd smell the weakness as if she bathed in it. She clears her throat, shaking her head, dark spirals hitting her back - they used to be blonde, the blonde of Panem's very own Madam President; something else stolen - and it is legitimately the hardest thing she has had to do all week. "Tonight, at the tribute parade, I feel like you've humiliated me."

Bonnie is still wearing her gloves, the same stark white color as her dress, she now going to pluck them off of her hands, doing so slowly, deliberately, almost agonizingly at snail speed. Valencia's eyes never leave Bonnie's hands, deft fingers nabbing away at the fabric until her hands are free, the gloves lying in the corner of the desk up against the phone. "Humiliated you? How so?"

Valencia looks up at the ceiling, biting down on her tongue. The Hunger Games is easier than standing up to this damned woman, she swears. "Having me stand with you is a huge honor, and I thank you for the opportunity to have me shadow you, Madam President, but," and the president's eyes close at that, the victor's heart sinking. A compliment is always, _always _followed by a but, and everything else before it is pure horseshit. "But, having me stand up there with Hale and Hector... I felt like a joke, standing there with criminals..." Her voice falters, cracking somewhat at the end of it, Valencia taking a step back.

The other woman frowns, placing a hand under her chin. Valencia isn't sure what's worse, the silence or the anticipation of a response, to be standing on the edge of a knife, waiting for the plunge, for the bombs to detonate. It is surely coming, riding a wave of vermillion vengeance. Bonnie turns her head closer to Valencia, but her gaze is aimed at the desk. "You feel like I humiliated you?"

"Yes ma'am. As- as you've said, they're _criminals, _and-"

"We're not," Bonnie finishes for her.

"Precisely." Valencia's heart roars in her chest. She's certain the picture frames on the wall can hear it too, that Bonnie can smell the fear coming from her sweat, cause she's starting to sweat. She doesn't realize it until a droplet slides down her cheek in a slick nastiness that only tears and sweat can produce.

Bonnie gets up from her seat, Valencia's eyes watching her every movement. She might not be in the arena with weapons hanging off of any somesuch spike or tree branch, but in case, _just _in case. "Valencia, did it cross your mind that I might've been thinking what message I'd send?" she pauses her walk halfway, now standing sideways with her desk, one hand still resting on it, now picking away at one of the gloves. "Having one of the murderers of my husband stand behind me, and their accomplice? Did you think about that message at all?"

She's at a loss for words. That _had _not been on her mind. She shakes her head. "No- no ma'am."

"Are you feeling pity for them?" Bonnie asks.

"No ma'am," Valencia says. _God, _she hopes her tone is convincing enough. Every bone in her body is shaking, every fiber that makes her Valencia Shale is quivering as Bonnie gets closer, now picking up both gloves off the desk, rounding it so she's standing in between the two chairs, one of which Valencia sits in for her daily lectures on governing and on how to rule Panem.

"There's going to be talk, Valencia, as I am sure you're aware," the president continues. "From someone I shall not name, someone you know and someone I know. They're trying to spread gossip and divide this great nation," Bonnie takes Valencia's hands together in her left, the right still holding onto the gloves. "They want to soil my name and bring Hale and Hector and Arizona out of the shadows, but we _know _the truth and have not been misled," the victor nods along with the counsel. "The rumor is that I killed my husband. Me? I just had a baby with him! Why would I ever do something like that?"

"I'm not doubting you, Madam President, but I-" Valencia starts, and then she cuts herself off, eyes widening. Shit. _Fuck. _Once again, one of those idiotic stupid buts!

Bonnie pauses, going to say something, but she stops, tilting her head to the side, emerald eyes lighting up in wildfire, the same green flowing through her veins. "Finish your sentence, sweetheart. But, what? You don't doubt me, but..."

Her mouth has gone dry. It is the same dryness that Valencia feels when staring down the axe blade of Peri Florence, the girl from District 7 that she kills to be standing where she is today, under the same type of enemy, but something worse, perhaps. She tries to swallow, but the rock does not sink any farther than her esophagus, a choke coming out instead. She catches herself, recuperates herself, but there's a fear now in her glance. "I do think they might be innocent..." she whispers, but this time the walls will certainly not hear her.

The president drops the victor's hands from her grasp, lifting her chin, and Valencia is unable to read the look on her face. After a moment, where the roaring of her heart returns, Bonnie speaks, "Would you like to take one of their places? Both of their places, perhaps?"

Valencia blinks. She didn't expect that. "What?" It is all she has, for it feels like she's been punched in the gut.

It seems as if she'll never get a response, for the next second Bonnie slaps her across the face with one of the gloves, the slap stinging after its mark is left. Valencia gasps out of shock, but not necessarily pain, twisting over to the side. When she rights herself, Bonnie is in her face to the point where their noses are almost touching, a look of anger plastered across her face. Valencia is screaming inwardly at herself for how much of an idiot she is for getting out of bed. "The next time you question me or my decisions, I'll gladly remind you of your place, Valencia," Bonnie hisses. "I might be able to remind you that you tried escaping the arena during your stay, plus humiliated Pollux during your final interview, and yet my husband and I let you go unpunished," she crouches down to the victor's level. "You do not want to be on my bad side, Valencia. You think witnessing me having Arizona Merviere thrown in front of a train is the worst I can do? You've seen nothing yet, Miss Shale."

That is the stab of ice to the heart, a piece of it dislodged in her chest.

"I'm sorry..." she whimpers.

"Get out," Bonnie says, almost in a sniffing way, turning her back to Valencia. The victor rights herself, but unsure if this is actually a command, until the president turns on her, eyes burning a hellish green. "GET OUT!"

Valencia does not need to be told a third time. She books it out of the president's office, heart in her throat, cheek throbbing under the slap, the terror in her veins pulsating to the maximum.

Talks of treason are to not be entertained in the Rodney administration.

Talks of treason are not to be entertained in Panem, period.

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**Alright everyone, that was Chapter #13: Talks of Treason. Man, ya'll, I am so sorry for the word count being this long but I started writing and I just couldn't stop. If anyone is aware of my Slaughter dealings, my chapters tend to be on the longer side, and I've written chapters before that have been much longer, and there will be as well for this story.**

**We've now been introduced to Criston Pellock, a victor from District 6 that has been an idea for awhile, as inventors and Brainiac's from District 3 is a stereotype that I am not doing in terms of victor characters, so I hope Criston is a breath of fresh air. We also got another look at our new Head Gamemaker, Constantine Fallorne, and she's quite the bag of tricks. In Valencia's corner, things are just not going so well for our Quarter Quell victor, and there's plenty more where that came from.**

**Next chapter, #14: Keeping Up With the Rest is gonna be another tribute introduction chapter, with four to get yourselves acquainted with, and I am very excited for that. Please review; I'd love to know your thoughts and theories and other little fledglings of stuff. I hope you have an amazing day! I love you all! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm **


	14. Keeping Up With the Rest (Intros VII)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #14: Keeping Up With the Rest. We are now in the middle of training for our tributes, after an explosive tribute parade and a continuation of the Capitol storyline, in which we will return to it before too long, but we've got more tributes to cover today, and by more, I mean ****_four. _****Today, ladies and gents, our four new tributes are Seth Cables, from District 5 by Nemris, Bloom Estrada, from District 12 by LordShiro, Roanoke Arkus, from District 7 by Guesttwelve, and Anahita Cascade, from District 4, by Reader Castellan, and it is quite the group ya'll, some interesting new faces to add to the mix. I am hoping not to make some outrageous word count chapter but ya'll never know with me, haha. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #14: Keeping Up with the Rest.**

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_~ So sayeth the Lord, drink from my waters without asking, and you shall be poisoned. _

**_Seth Cables: District 5 Male P.O.V (17)_**

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There's a problem. A nasty, head-splitting ache kind of problem. He doesn't want to go out there and say it point blank, but he might as well, as otherwise he'll be toeing around the bush, which certainly has never been his style. His district partner? Miss Sophiana Delarosa? She needs to go. He doesn't know what is with her and her oddities, having been dragged up on the stage screaming, clawing after some _leaf? _He's not sure exactly, but she weirds him out, a he's tried to be gentle, but the gentleness is over after last night. Everything is going well, and seventeen year-old Seth Cables likes the radioactive outfit they're wearing, practically glowing fifty shades of emerald in the night sky until Sophiana next to him starts trembling, shaking like one of those little leaves she prawns after, and then there's the _wailing. _An ingratiating noise, and Seth grips the outer rim of the chariot, turns to her, and _barks. _He's never spoken like that to anyone, part of him feeling slightly bad at how she recoils underneath him, but it needs to be done.

District 5 looked like a joke like night to the whole nation with their little stunt. He knows who's to blame.

Seth Cables does not like to look like a joke.

He's sitting down, currently, waiting for Sophiana to emerge from her room. Luckily not everyone last night had seen their stint, him raising his voice and all, she shirking underneath the loud volume he exerts, but it is enough that one of the tributes - he's not sure who, maybe one of the Careers, maybe one of the whiz kids from Three - jeer at him, looking like quite the rough villain. Seth would like to stab their eyes out, but he keeps the rage from bristling across his face, lifting his head up high, and the glint in his eyes is all that it should show. There has been plenty of types of people Seth has seen, has worked with, and has unfortunately had to terminate, but he's certain that Sophiana is a different breadbasket altogether. Seth jumps into the training uniform, a sharp nylon black sort of material that sticks to his skin like tree sap, it highlighting his buzzed crew cut, short dark hair bristling alongside his jaw, popping out his aquamarine eyes. He tries bulking up his muscles some, as there is a good lack of definition underneath the nylon, but he'll worry about intimidation later.

It won't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the two district partners are not compatible with one another. Seth is not reaped into the Hunger Games to be a babysitter for some sixteen year-old girl who has her mind wandering on some other planet. Unfortunately, as Seth finds out, he is unable of going back to his house to pick up a few essentials, he is unable to take the razor and the revolver and all that jazz; his hands will do the dirty work, as they've done plenty of times over. He drums his fingers against the side of the chair, pressing the side of his cheek into his fist, checking over at the clock incessantly. They're late, they're late because of _her. _Seth clenches and unclenches his fingers against the arm rest, about to stand up and go over and knock on her door. Well, he wouldn't _knock _on the door, he'd kick it in first, and then knock. As he goes to get up, her door opens, and Sophiana steps out into the foyer.

"You're making us late," is the first thing out of his mouth, starting Sophiana. Not a '_good morning_' or '_how are you doing, how'd ya sleep_', but a nice and cold, _You're screwing things up for us. _

She yawns, dark curly hair spiraling against her back, she in her training uniform, a softness to her eyes that has no reason to be there. "You could've just gone without me, you know?"

Seth's blood burns on the undersides of his arms, a magnetic sort of warmth drawing all ire to his core. He locks his jaw, eyes as sharp as a chiseled statue, gaze focused directly on her. "We're supposed to do everything together, remember? It's what we were told last night. Trust me, if I could leave you alone and do things by myself, I would."

Sophiana looks hurt by that statement, but frankly he doesn't care. "Well, if you're supposed to be pretending to like me, you're doing an excellent job at that," she barbs back at him. It seems to be that the damaged girl she is has more of a bite than she'd let on. Seth raises an eyebrow at her insult, sarcasm practically dripping off of every word she said, but she somehow still hides within herself, billowing herself up in the material of the uniform. Her arms and legs are still covered up, and he'll never forget the fiasco that happens when his district partner's name is called, her screaming after some plant. All of Panem has seen their dysfunctionality, and they're being _laughed _at for it. He could care less if he has to _like _her. Seth Cables knows practically nothing about her, but he hates her enough all the same.

He stands up, trying to relax his arms by his sides, but even as they lay there in their spots, swinging back and forth, the muscles on his arm are coated in a slippery tension, a tension that wounds across his chest, obstructing his breath. "You gonna embarrass us again today, like you did last night and at the reaping?"

"I _didn't _embarrass us," Sophiana tries saving face, sputtering, but she even recoils away from Seth as he stands up, and he steps back too. He honestly has no intention of hurting her, at least not yet, for they're not in the arena, and she's clamoring away on all fours like a frightened dog, tail shrunk beneath them under their hide.

"You didn't exactly help us either," he points out, and she has no argument from that. Seth does return back to his normal spot, staring off at Sophiana, the name quite a mouthful in his head. Something about the name hits him, a reminder somewhere in his brain that he knows her, but doesn't _know her _know her sort of deal. She does not look quite pretty with the hall background behind her, sheen and glossy caramelized wood highlighting her dark accents, but the wilted look is still there, and perhaps she's incapable of undoing it. "You cause us any problems today and I'll gladly yell at you again." Threats work, and Seth's used them before; maybe not on district partners and trembling girls who are near his height and age, but socialites with wives who want them dead, as after all, a price is a price.

Sophiana bucks her head up slightly, but she does not draw back on her sleeves like he expects. Seth is incapable of getting the image out of his head, of her scarred skin, tarred over and marred with some sort of stitching, pale spots shining out from her darker exterior, and no matter what she's wearing, Sophiana has found a way to keep her arms and legs covered. He doesn't see the point of it, the _whole nation _saw with their escort's look of disgust visible and on center stage. "I've dealt with worse," she says, and her voice does not waver this time, as it is has on nearly everything else she has said.

Seth crosses his arms together over his chest, peering at her. He has no idea whether or not to call her strong, but he certainly is going to use the descriptor of 'weak' somewhere in the mix. The itch is still picking away at his brain, and although the pair is now late to the training grounds by ten minutes, an extra one won't hurt worse. "What's your last name again?"

"Delarosa," she says, and Sophiana's eyes widen as she witnesses Seth's widen back.

It is the truth, as he hears her say what her last name is, Seth widens his eyes, stumbling back against one of the chairs, his side hitting an arm. A sudden lapse of discontentment flashes across his face, Seth clutching at his chest, the obstruction returning. Delarosa? Where has he heard that? Delarosa... Delarosa... Seth repeats the name over again in his head. Her name is Sophiana... _Sophia... _suddenly Seth bowls over as if he has been punched in the gut. He lets out a light cry of pain, his skin burning as if he were being raked over hot coals. Sophiana reaches out towards him timidly, but he pushes her away, a growl vibrating in his throat as it morphs from his whimper of agony. He shakily gets to his feet, knocking Sophiana out of the way so hard that she falls back onto the couch, her skin vanishing into the darkness of the leather.

Seth stalks over to the elevator, slamming his fist on the down button, and when the crate arrives, he steps in, Sophiana still staring back at him in shock, a look of confusion plastered on her face, eyebrows furrowed together. The doors close, and he is left all alone, the liquidous feel in his chest returning. He presses his head against the doors, taking a deep breath, shutting his eyes. He cannot get her face out of his head. Not Sophiana... but... but... Seth cannot finish the thought in his head. Her sweet smile, pliable and soft fingers pulling at his own hands, and the flames that scorch her skin, incinerating her body whole as a column collapses underneath their house, and she's crushed underneath. Seth is screaming for his sister to get up while her own screams echo around the collapsing structure, smoke causing him to choke, the gray screen a harsh visor blotting her out, all that he sees is her ignited corpse thrashing about under the wreckage, his father's arm tight across his waist as he pulls him out of the fire.

It is another six hours before the fire can be completely burned out, Seth and his parents sitting in the grass, he on his knees, he unable to tell the dew drops from his own tears as they slide up and down individual blades of grass, the sky a harsh vermillion backlighting the ashy gray clouds that occupy its space, while the husk of what used to be his home burns and burns, wood falling away, tile shards exploding out onto the front lawn. He's freezing, but Seth doesn't care, a bubble of rage building in his throat that he will not unleash. When the flames have receded and been beaten by the firefighters that hastily came to the Cables residence, one firefighter heads into the wreckage, and comes out with a body, pint-sized, charred beyond recognition, and the wails of the family rise higher than the screams.

All Seth knows after that, when his father is questioning a Peacekeeper, hands pulling fiercely at the stark white leather of who would have done this, he catches a name, a single name, of Markus Delarosa, a father of two in a smaller, poorer section of town. Bile threatens to appear in Seth's throat, and that Markus had two little girls named Sophiana and Yolanda that would spend their teenage years without their father, he now in prison.

With a sharp dose of clarity to his smoky picture, as Seth imagines his charred little sister vanishing away into dust and ash as he holds her in his hands, it comes clear to him now, it becomes very, _very_ clear. His hatred that builds in his voice as he yells at Sophiana for her failings in the tribute parade, why he witnesses the shaking and it snaps something in him... why Seth doesn't lunge forward with a knife and slice her throat open when he sees her one day, years ago, in the market, after the scorch marks in in the grass have faded away... how he repeats her name in his head over and over again until it is a record that replays itself without needing his interaction. It is why he picks up the blade, uses the revolver, kicks down homes of socialites doing dice with the devil, why he's had to make those threats.

Sophiana Delarosa's - _Sophia _\- father burned down his home, and as a result, Seth lost his little sister to the blaze. The very same girl... that very same little girl he dreams of killing one evening, just to make that man wail and losing his own precious child... she's his district partner.

When the elevator lands on the training floor, the tributes dispersed and doing their own sort of business, a few looking at him, one even moving over as Seth steps out of the elevator, the hate burning in his eyes is indescribable... he'll make her suffer for his own losses with every inch paid for in blood.

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**_Bloom Estrada: District 12 Female P.O.V (18)_**

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She knows that Mirek doesn't like her very much, if their very first conversation together on the train riding to the Capitol where he tells her to shut up is any indicator. She knows that something's happened in his life for him to hate her the way he does, as she can also see that in his eyes, though she's sure if he were to be asked about it, she'd be sent away with a slap from the back of his hand. Besides the fact the two don't like one another, they're still training with one another, in an odd dosage of irony. The two of them, though they are working in silence, are at the knife throwing station, separated by a flimsy barrier between them that is see-through. Bloom is able to get a look at Mirek through the glass, the way his brow furrows together in frustration at another missed target, when Bloom manages to snag a target just off the cusp at the arm. It wouldn't be a hit that could cause any damage necessarily, but it could be enough.

Their mentors words hang over Bloom's head heavily. District 12 last year had been an abysmal failure, with the girl, Gaia, dying in the bloodbath due to a broken leg incapacitating her from running away when a Career beheads her, and the guy, who looks so striking to Mirek that she shudders whenever she looks at him, has an alliance that is chipped away by others in the arena till he's the last one standing, killing the main aggressor, sure, before losing his mind, also dying to a Career. That is not what they're supposed to be like, for the 101st year. District 12 has always suffered, Bloom knows this, being one living in it, but now she's the _it _and unless she wants the suffering to continue, she has to keep on living and living until it means a victory. A victory would mean the death of the guy currently standing next to her who misses yet again another knife throw.

"This is stupid," he hisses to himself, banging a fist down on the table. Luckily no other tribute happens to be behind Mirek in his loose moment of rage that Bloom cowers away from.

"It's just practice, Mirek," she says, wincing to herself, as _god, _that sounded so pretentious and patronizing. "And luck. A whole lotta luck," Bloom adds, making her next shot, deciding to throw the knife a bit sideways, almost like a frisbee, but all it does is have the handle of the blade strike her fingers, she cursing at the blunt force, and the knife spiraling into the lane, not hitting the target, it not being anywhere _near _the target, the blade dancing away into the lights. Bloom is sick already of the design of the training center, stalwart gray walls, the tile does not reflect her face back at her, and whatever semblances of light that are there do not do much in shining what needs to be seen... someone has to go in and add a ridiculous splash of color. If anyone back home were to hear her say that, she'd get a good eye roll. Always so serious, the Estrada family, that Bloom feels like the black sheep with her outrageous outfits and her lover strapped to her side.

She sees Mirek's little smirk at her blunder, but he does not so subtlety hide it like he might think it does. "A lot of luck," he says, and she's inclined to agree with him. "Just look at her," and Mirek juts his thumb at the booth two slots down from them. There are four slots so four tributes could practice knife throwing, and in the fourth spot there's a Career, Satin being her name if Bloom remembers correctly, and she's absolutely killing the two of them. Granted, she's been training for this her whole life and this is the first time Bloom has ever picked up a weapon in terms of having it kill something, but she has to admit, despite her optimism, that it is hard to keep her chin up watching Satin practically shred the plastic dummies and targets to pieces with her throws.

It almost feels inhuman, as if Bloom is watching something supernatural. Bloom sets down the next knife that she had been going to use, the last one actually, until she'd be given a new set. "Let's move elsewhere," she says, and Mirek nods, hands rubbing off the leather of the table, he having thrown his last. She gets a good look at his face as he turns to her, the world drowning out besides Satin's practice, her impeccable aim, all the while her face is twisted in concentration. The striking resemblance of Mirek to Colt jars her a bit out of her stupor. From the little she's unwrapped out of her district partner, he's worked in the coal mines for a year, just under two which is coming up shortly. He probably knew the guy, who she thought seemed quite nice, but as he looks at her, Bloom knows that there's no way he'll pull her history out of her from a single glance.

She's better off than most in Twelve, though she does not necessarily live in the Merchant side of town with the pale faced kids and their bleach blonde hair, wearing their gorgeous white clothing shining like ivory in the sun on reaping day. Her parents, serious as can be, stern faces like a hawk looking across the forest treetops at a squirrel have good jobs, sure, as it puts food on the table, Bloom not having to go hungry, but it is what she sees that causes the awkward dinner conversations, or the late night scheduled scolding from her dad while Bloom brushes her teeth, spitting into the sink. "_You have to blend in, Bloom. You don't know what the Capitol will do. You going on about all these issues that can't be_ solved," and it is his tender hand on her shoulder that would cause Bloom to look up, "_I don't want to lose you."_

Although Bloom has never said it out loud to anyone, it disgusts her, that sort of attitude, that outlook. She has not been arrested, sure, or even hit - not yet, at least, as the Head Peacekeeper hasn't come to see her fights and rallies, a rally of one, for she's the only one to show up - for where her father would certainly then add to that damage, but she is not sitting by, looking at the slums of District 12 and seeing the Seam blacken, where the soil cracks underneath the heat of the sun, children lying in unmoving heaps against one another in a square foot of shade, faces dried out, throat cracked from dehydration... Bloom knows what she must do, and if she doesn't do it, no one else will. She has yet to find someone else of her economic status or higher agree with any of her points, they all ducking their heads down and staying out of trouble.

Screw that.

Bloom will embrace the trouble.

All because of an orphanage, and a little girl with gorgeous eyes, dark wispy hair, and Bloom's heart bursting forth-

"Hey, Twelves!" shouts a voice behind them, Bloom and Mirek turning from their walk. The voice sounds full of themselves just in their cadence, Bloom rolling her eyes as the syllables echo and she registers that someone just called them _Twelves. _Mirek tenses up next to her, bulking up some, she visibly seeing it, her own mouth running dry. Two Careers come up to them, and Bloom is damn certain this is not some sort of alliance request, no way. The guy who shouted to them is in the lead, short dark hair, eyes piercing her like a viper, and god, he's so arrogant she could puke. The other kid behind him, also a Career, the guy from One if Bloom recalls correctly, has a look of nervousness on his face, as if he is being dragged along by Mr. Douchebag here.

Mirek crosses his arms, gaze cold and unflinching. "Can I help you, Aris?"

That's his name, Bloom remembers. Aris Lindel, the Career from District 2, smug ass bastard. She hasn't spoken a word to him, but she wonders what he's hobbled all the way across the training center to talk to them for some reason. Aris, as Mirek calls him, pulls his smile back, showing his teeth, hands swinging back and forth. It is rather comical, but Bloom isn't laughing, the air tight and tense around the four of them. Satin stops her knife throwing, as her district partner is standing behind Aris. "I didn't come here for you," he says, tone sharp and threatening, "I'm interested in your friend."

"She's not my-" Mirek starts, at the same time the guy from One is throwing his input in.

"Aris, this is stupid, come on, we've got to train and-" as the teenager tugs on Aris's arm.

Bloom wants to reserve a glare for Mirek _and _Aris but she only looks directly at the Career, for she'll deal with her own partner later, or rather, her _not __friend._ "_Way to be smooth, Mirek," _she tells herself, and then out loud to Aris. "I'm right here. What do you need?" Her tone is smug, perhaps a bit more pointed than it needs to be, but her father isn't here to reprimand her, and she doesn't want to be held back from one of the Capitol dogs sauntering over to her as if he is some sort of hotshot. He'll bleed and die the same, after all.

He looks back at the male Career from District 1, throwing off the arm tugging him away. "Shut up, Cyril, let me handle this," and then he turns back to Bloom, lip still curled, her body rippling with disgust. Aris crosses his arms over his chest, eyes lighting up as if there is a fire in front of him. "Word around the street is that you hate the Capitol. That you hate people like me."

She frowns, knowing full and well she's made a mistake, as Careers can smell weakness a mile away, but what Aris says makes her raise an eyebrow... how would he know she would even hate the Capitol? No one else but Mirek and some of Twelve know of her protests that lead nowhere, protests that do absolutely nothing except get her laughed at. "How would you know about that?"

"Your friend here, Mr. Loose Lips," Aris says smugly, nodding towards Mirek, who has visibly shifted away from Bloom some, a look of abashed guilt washing over his face. Bloom locks her jaw, staring at Mirek with the ire of a thousand suns, but directs her stare back at Aris.

"Yeah, you're right," Bloom admits. She might as well own up to it after all, it won't hurt her, won't kill her. He is not allowed to touch her anyways, as if he does, he's broken the one Gamemaker rule while training: no fighting with the other tributes. "I've protested back home in Twelve before about the Capitol and their supporters, such as District 2," she looks up and down at Aris, lip curling in disgust, eyes fiery, her throat locking up however, as Aris's lips purse, certainly not a good sign. "I've never liked the Careers," she might be saying it to the two of them gathered, but she directs it solely towards Aris, as it's _him _that she hates. "You want to kill and be the Capitol's chosen favor and blah, blah, blah," the look in Aris's eyes chills her blood, but she's been venturing this far in the dark and uncharted waters she might as well continue. "I was picked to fight to the death, while you volunteered at the chance to kill people your own age," she crosses her arms, ponytail shaking as she moves. "I don't know what's worse. Your desire to want to kill people or your douchebag scent?"

She's got him there, she's sure.

The next thing she knows, Aris's face is a snarled mess of pale flesh and diamond lights, he lunging for her, one hand balled into a fist, the other a claw. Mirek grabs the back of Bloom's shirt, wrenching her back some, and Cyril does the same towards Aris. Bloom doesn't resist when Mirek moves her away, but poor Cyril is having to dig his heels into the floor. "It isn't worth it Aris!" the guy is shouting over and over again, Aris trying to scramble out of his grip, which looks oddly sexual, but then Mirek decides to maneuver between he and Bloom, lifting his head up. Aris rights himself, sending Cyril to the floor in a heap of nylon, glaring at Bloom, who maintains her stare. She isn't scared of him yet, he doesn't have a sword in his hand. Whenever he does, though, that is when she'll start to worry.

"Watch yourself, Twelve. Watch yourself," and that is all he threatens before stalking off.

Cyril scrambles up afterwards, face burning a red as deep as his acne, but Bloom pays him no attention for he is not the concern; she'd feel rather pushed to thank him for trying to keep Aris back. Bloom turns to her district partner, though, arms crossed, and perhaps she might need Cyril Barther to keep her from lunging for Mirek's eyes.

"You told the Careers that I hated the Capitol?"

Mirek, who is much larger than she is, looks like a little kid who had just been caught stealing from the cookie jar, eyes sunken in some, lips turned downwards, and he shuffles awkwardly on the floor. No one else is paying them any attention, Satin returning to her training, and District 12 left alone again, although she can hear Aris yelling at Cyril across the room, something about humiliation and bullshit and who cares?

"It kinda came out."

"Thanks a lot," Bloom says, and Mirek goes to say something, but she doesn't let him. "You know, Mirek, I don't know what happened to you to make you hate me so much as to tell our worst enemies that I hate their guts, but next time, if you just want to say you don't like me, just say it to my face, okay?"

She pushes past him all the way to the elevator. Training is done for the day, at least for her, and she doesn't care if he follows after her or not. She doesn't care if he apologies or not, actually.

Bloom Estrada hates the Capitol and every little thing it touches, as its reach still poisons home no matter where she is.

She'll gladly destroy the place, even if she has to burn it all down on her own.

* * *

**_Roanoke Arkus: District 7 Male P.O.V (13)_**

* * *

Though he's certain that Sage has gotten annoyed with the fact he's practically stuck by her side like glue, there's nowhere else for him to go, and he's starting to realize that he's chosen a great choice for a potential ally. The two of them remain behind a bit later after the Career from Two yells at District 12, an odd sight, but quite funny as there's raised voices and claws and punches, Roanoke bouncing up and down on his heels as the fighting ensues, but it falls back down to a disappointment when everything is all said and done, for there's no blood, there's simply exchanged words and people slipping on the tile, hardly what he'd call a fight. He and Sage are standing over in the back corner of the training center, surrounded by walls and mats taller than him by a good chunk, Sage's hair tied back and up, she punching away at the mat.

She offers him a try, which he eagerly approaches the mat for, but it does nothing as he hits the mat that is standing up, his fists making soft _puh _noises into the material, but he does not knock it over the way Sage does, she doing some sort of roundhouse kick thing that has him seeing stars, even though he is not the one hit from the kick. Her power is impressive, as they then move onto the archery station, Roanoke picking one made from the trees of District 7. Sage has a harder time using the material, nearly breaking a finger when she releases one of the arrows, it missing the target by a good bit. Roanoke holds his own weapon in his hands, a feeling of warmth passing over his body; the bow feels like home, and although he does not have a violent bone in his body, something within him imagines what it would feel like to fire it and an arrow at something other than the silent target in the shape of a human ten yards away from him. He releases the arrow he had drawn, it sailing down the dimly lit path, hitting right under the stomach, the thud echoing around the near empty space. All that is left is the two of them, all six Careers, and the duo from District 6, though the two of them are nowhere near one another, working on opposite sides of the center.

Sage tries another shot, but before she can fire, her arms give out, Sage lowering them while he reloads the bow. It is made out of wood, to the point where the surface could give Roanoke a splinter, something he's experienced a time or twenty, and his next attempt misses by a few inches. Beginner's luck, perhaps. She sets her bow down, moving away from the spot, Roanoke remaining there, although his gaze follows her. His district partner wanders over to the axe throwing station, it being left empty, picking up one of the weapons lying on the rack. They are quite beautiful, but the moment he thinks that, he lowers his bow, frowning. None of these weapons are beautiful. They destroy and that's all they know how to do. He shakes his head, wiping away the uncertainty. He has no time to be uncertain here in the Capitol, about to be in an arena in less than a week. Uncertainty is why neither Peri nor Linden make it home last year, having been so damn close.

Roanoke draws back the bow, taking another shot, this one embedding into the plastic just above the hand, maybe severing a knuckle or a joint, not a bad shot. He pays no attention to Sage, who has now taken her stance on the mat to throw an axe. He looks back at the target, picturing someone in the space. His mind searches and searches, but there's no one of interest to look at besides Sage. He thinks back, although the memory is painful, at Peri pushing the knife into Linden's heart, after they had done the nasty underneath some large oak tree, he clawing at her hands, she sobbing, and just under twenty-four hours later, Peri has her sponsor gift embedded in her neck, an axe mighty similar to the one Sage is holding onto. Roanoke squeezes his eyes shut, and the image of Sage being the target laid out in front of him vanishes. He shouldn't be thinking like this before the Games start. His district partner is not like the old ones, she would not stab him in the heart.

He is not afraid of death, this is something Roanoke admits to her last night while the two sit in the main room of their apartment, he drinking a glass of water while Sage goes and raids the whiskey cabinet, holding some rather large bottle and taking swigs of it in secrecy after an Avox or one of their mentors comes out to check on them. From the way Sage handles the alcohol, it seems to not be her first time around that court, but there is a sharp look of displeasure on her face after a few times she lifts it to her lips. Someone will notice the wares depleted, perhaps, but what exactly are they going to do? What type of punishment could someone endure beyond being killed in the Games? However, it is true, what Roanoke says, which catches Sage off guard, her lips lifting up slightly, eyes narrowing in, directing her gaze directly at him.

_"What do you mean? Not afraid of death?" It seems to not register on her face what that means._

_He gives a slight chuckle. Being at the young age he is, there's a many things thirteen year-old Roanoke Arkus can appreciate or could appreciate, things he could be dwelling on instead of dying, but it is the truth. He's not so sure what lies above in the heavens, but whatever it is, he's sure there is something, and that there's a place he'll go after dying. Dying to him isn't some cold eternal comb where the sands of time eventually grind up the corpse into nothingness; that is not the picture or ending he foresees. Roanoke runs his fingers around the rim of the glass, biting on his cheek. "I am not welcoming dying either," he says, in a short quipped smile, one that has Sage grinning likewise as she takes a final sip of the whiskey. "If I die though, I won't be afraid of it. If a Career has me on my knees about to behead me, I won't fear it." _

_His district partner nods at the statement, but there's not a look of pleasure on her face exactly. Roanoke is afraid he scared her off after saying something like that, in which it could be that he's not some warm fortress she can run to in case she needs someone, but he knows the ridiculousness warped in that; what could he do? Being so young, she's looking for people elsewhere, and even so, she has someone back home, as that is what the song she sings to him is about, in a way. As a matter of fact, as Roanoke wants to add, mouth open, words that can't exactly force themselves out that_

A sharp echo reverberates around the training center, startling Roanoke, he firing the arrow that he had been holding onto, it soaring down and missing the plastic dummy by a good mile. He whirls around wildly, looking for where the noise came from, until his eyes land on Sage and then the gaze travels down the path until it reaches the dummy that she had just sank the axe into with a vicious throw. The dummy is knocked on its side, off balance and about to tip over onto the floor from the pedestal it is perched on. The blade glows silver underneath the lighting, a silver that makes him swallow a heavy gulp, as that silver would look immaculate underneath him, painted slick with his blood, shining back darker flesh, a tanner complexion and his dark hair. Sage stands in her spot on the mat, breathing heavily, tossing glances around to see if anyone is paying attention towards her.

Someone is indeed looking at her, the Careers having glanced over briefly, but it is not them that has Roanoke staring at them, but the girl from Six, with her short hair and malicious stare, eyes narrowed in at Sage's back, and then the girl shrugs, going back to wrestling with a trainer, a bruise settling nicely just underneath her right ear. Not as strong or perfect as she thought, perhaps? Roanoke makes his way back over to Sage, eyes wide, smile bursting forth. There is a lot of grimness shrouding the training center; he doesn't mind smiling every once in awhile. He reaches her just as Sage picks up another axe. The handle is wrapped in a dark covering of sorts, highlighted with a red band around the tip where the handle meets the blade, and Sage swings it back and forth in her grip.

"That was a great shot!" he exclaims once he makes his way over to her.

"Want to try?" she asks, offering him the axe.

Roanoke steps away from it, waving his hands back and forth in front of him. "I- I'm good..." he stutters, laughing nervously, a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead. Sage frowns for a second, peering at him, but like the Careers had done, like that strange girl from Six had done, he's ignored, she shrugging.

"Suit yourself," and before he can utter another word, Sage goes swinging her axe down the path at a different dummy that is at a forty-five degree angle from her previous choice, the axe digging into the plastic head so well it is as if she cut the head in two, Roanoke seeing the plastic guts and brain matter spilling out. The axes are taken off of the two dummies, placed back on the rack, and Sage starts up again. He steps back away from her, watching absentmindedly. She's great, sure, but every time Sage throws the weapon and its sharp blade collides with something on the other end, as she has yet to miss a target, he flinches, eyes squeezing shut, and when he squeezes his eyes shut, the cries for help can still be heard, the roar of the sawblade drowning everything else out.

He leans up against one of the pillars of the training center, he stuck in a pocket of the room with just himself, Sage, a row full of axes, and dissected dummies made of plastic shining like blueberry trees underneath the burning lights. He doesn't like blades, circular or otherwise. He is not going to go near the swords, knives, won't try the axes, and he's sure there's no sawblades anywhere in the building that can be used as a weapon, but if there are any, he is not going to go near them either. Sage is doing an excellent job, a slight roar of flame building in his stomach, churning his flesh around like a messed up tar pit, but Roanoke keeps his resolve on; he's proud of her, he's awed by her skill, but he should not be anywhere near her and her lethality.

If Roanoke closes his eyes hard enough, he can just picture it, picture it clear as day, where Sage has no bearing in the shot. He might not fear death, but he certainly fears- a black surge of bile threatens to emerge from his throat as the image breaks free of its shackles, and he has to place his hands on his knees with a heavy sigh, but it still does not draw his district partner's attention, or anyone else's attention for that matter.

Clear as a cloudless day, with the sharpest azure sky Roanoke can think of, over a hickory forest, he sees his mother, one arm lost to the sawblades at the sawmill, she losing the appendage right in front of him, and he is incapable of stopping his scream from spilling out of his throat, while his mother looks at the detached limb in a silent horror, blood dripping off of the extended bits of muscle and flesh that are left behind, and the Capitol's machinery still whirls round and round, now covered in his family's own vermillion splatters...

The Capitol machinery runs round and round, and Roanoke knows he's unprepared for what's next; he can't keep up with the rest.

* * *

**_Anahita Cascade: District 4 Female P.O.V (13)_**

* * *

She already knows that the entire world is not rooting for her. It's kinda hard to, actually, being thirteen years old and not being the chosen District 4 female tribute, as she volunteers with an electric skip in her step, running up to the stage so fast that it is almost as if she is not there. The mentors are not happy for apparently her district partner isn't someone that is supposed to be on stage either, but it doesn't matter, as they're the duo being shoved together. Anahita doesn't see the big deal, frankly, but she is able to read the cards that are splayed out in front of her. For some reason no one bats an eye when Carrion Bastion and Maisey Rovneay take the stage just a year earlier, neither chosen by the Academy to be the volunteer that year - it looks like a running issue for District 4, volunteers never being where they need to be, somehow caught off guard - but Anahita is given some bullshit excuse that they were at least trained and lethal. It is an odd descriptor, but it has Anahita putting her hands on her hips, cocking her head to the side, and then flipping one of the random Avoxes working on the train.

There is a shattered moment of silence at the very rude impulsive behavior she just exhibited, as Anahita does apologize to the Avox later for rudely flipping him and the tray of drinks he had been carrying. However, the moment her hands do cause the speech forbidden man to do a flip in the dining car, she looks back at the escort, both mentors, and her district partner's mix of awed and disgusted and confused faces, smirking just slightly. _Not strong enough for you? I just flipped a grown man onto his back, and I'm not very tall. _She isn't large in the slightest, both she and Jules practically midgets underneath the other Careers who have branched out in height and are quite tall - Jules she cannot explain, as there's something on the tip of her tongue that seems off, but Anahita can't figure out what it is exactly - but what she has can pack quite a punch if anyone is caught off guard by it.

Anahita is off to the side a bit, in the close combat quarters of the training center, the other five Careers - Cyril, Satin, Aris, Maren, and Jules, as she's now learned all of their names, quite the bawdy group of mismatches here - talking quietly, going back and forth at some sort of rock climbing wall, discussing who knows what. It's silly, Anahita thinks, for them to not be practicing a weapon, but she has to remind herself that the entire group has at least three years experience on her, the main hard hitters from One and Two having five extra years to their arsenal, while she's been training for five. Those five years have been the longest and most arduous years of her life, that she will not deny, but Anahita has forced the sweat and the tears into her training and she is not going to falter now when she's so close to the goal.

She wrenches the dagger she had just forced into one of the dummy's heads free, the plastic giving way, her arm getting covered in bits and shards of cerulean cartilage that is entirely artificial, they getting shrugged off as she knocks the dummy down. Anahita can see her tanned complexion looking back at her, large oak eyes and her freckled nose also muddled in the reflection, which is then ruined by her shanking the dummy in the face repeatedly, stabbing up and down over and over again in about five cycles before leaping off of it, exhausted. She wipes at the sweat pooling down her forehead, sighing heavily, catching a breather. The dummy is an unrecognized face, Anahita having destroyed the Capitol design, fake organs spilling onto the floor, which must be a bitch to clean up.

No one should be telling her what she can and cannot do, at least here in the Capitol. Anahita moves up through the ranks faster than expected, at a class meant for fifteen year-olds where she's taking those lessons at thirteen, kicking kids butts who are taller than her by a good half foot or more, her stature at exactly 4'9 when she goes for her latest check-up, four days ago, before the reaping. Anahita isn't sure exactly what compelled her to volunteer, as there's always the ability to volunteer later down the line when she's a bit older, gaining more experience, as she cannot deny that she isn't not unexperienced, but then it all clicks and comes together when the Avox, one looking strikingly similar to the one she flipped over on the train, comes on, red hair bright on the screen, typing away at a tablet, talking of evil grievances performed by the sitting president Bonnie Rodney.

It is that moment Anahita takes a leap of faith, impulsive as hell, but what can she say? She's impulsive. Everything she's ever done has been done on a whim. Signing up for the Academy is not what her parents decided in the beginning, as it is Anahita herself who goes and signs up for a class on martial arts with other eight year-olds, and she's amazing at it. Adding a few extra moments of begging does the trick, and Anahita is a fledgling Career, training in the art of winning the Hunger Games, she getting to see in person the very tributes she has watched die on the silver screens go at it, battling for dominance. Last year, when there is the annually held fighting tournament between the sixteen to eighteen year-olds, it split between the genders, to see who will come out on top, Anahita remembers being amazed at Maisey's talent. Though the girl does not win, she's a dancing tornado of blonde hair and silver blades before she's brought down by a well-placed kick, but Anahita feels the same burn that is sure to lie in Maisey at losing. She had rooting for her, after all.

The possible idea and eminence of President Bonnie Rodney being killed by some sort of insurrection billows everything over the top, and she pushes out of the crowd, racing to the stage _while _the escort is choosing the girl that would be reaped, but saved by the Career whose spot she's taking. Her voice is powerful when it rings out, her cry of _I volunteer,_ but she has yet to decide if it is one of stupidity or bravery that has her standing next to Jules, shaking his hand, waving to the crowd, and someone screaming an obscenity at her that she'd gladly greet them back with. Anahita wants to meet Bonnie Rodney, and if the woman dies due to some rebellion, then that means her chance is lost. Winning the Hunger Games and not dying is a great additional bonus. Anahita is serious enough to know, however, that this is no summer camp, that she can very well die at the hands of some other person, and that other person could be speared in the back of the head just moments after ending her life... a roulette wheel of death, and she has hopped on for the ride.

She charges for another dummy, switching blades from the dagger to a kunai, something sharper, longer, has more balance in her hand, feeling light and floaty, as she hits a dummy head on, beheading it cleanly. She is about to swing her sword in a high arc to hit another when someone makes their presence known behind her, Anahita having gotten to her feet, a hand leaping towards her shoulder. Anahita jumps, swinging around, and the person who had touched her cries out something illegible - probably a string of curse words - and she blinks in surprise, having nearly ended the life of the male from District 1, Cyril Barther. Anahita lowers the kunai, kicking away the head of the dummy she had just beheaded, it bouncing along the tile.

Cyril has taken a step back, one hand over his heart, and there's a look of fear in his eyes, if that is what Anahita is able to determine it as. "I'm sorry," she says, breathlessly. He had been the only one not really taking to the climbing wall, while Satin and Aris tried seeing who could make it to the top, Satin beating the male from Two easily, gloating about her victory from up high. She sheathes the kunai back into its scabbard, it hanging lowly on her waist, digging into the ground some as it trails behind her.

"It's Anahita, right?" Cyril asks, and she has to try and hold her laugh in at his face. There's a chiseled, handsome face staring back at her, his eyes that are windows to some sort of heavenly place, and then she looks at the rest of him and his gaudiness, the picture ruined, cracked underneath her feet. Besides, he's way too old for her, there's no way in hell she'd go for an older guy who looks like he could pick her up and play hacky-sack with.

She nods, moving a strand of hair behind her ear. Anahita steps away from the dummies, going back to the weapons rack. It is lined with daggers and knives of all kinds, the gladius looking rather appealing, a few maces, swords that she is not strong enough to carry, and the spot for her kunai, the scabbard perfectly locked into place by the holdings. She removes the weapon, about to place it on the rack. "Yeah, that's me. What's up?" Her tone is a bit more jovial than she'd like, but there's no reason to be cold and hostile. Despite the main training exercise they had to do for the day which involved running through an obstacle course, Anahita trains by herself, mimicking Maisey's dance in a shower of singing steel, leaving an ocean of bobbing plastic and cold guts in her wake.

Cyril rubs the back of his neck, taking an extra step back, but she's not sure why. "I- I don't know how else to say this, then, but..." and she glances over at him, frowning. "There's been a collective decision made that you are not going to be part of the Careers."

It is as if someone poured ice cold water down her back. Anahita freezes in place for a moment, before righting herself, placing the kunai scabbard back around her waist. "Excuse me?" There's no way she heard that right. Some kind of practical joke, maybe.

He backs off some more, hands raised, as he's farther away from the weapons to defend himself, and Anahita is the one holding the weapon. "Listen, it's not my decision," he says. "And it was nothing personal on my end. I've been watching you from afar and you seem really good."

Anahita withdraws the kunai just a bit from its sheath, the steel peeking out slightly, Cyril's eyes darting to it, but he remains at impasse. "If I seem really good then why am I being ditched?" she glances over at the other Careers, who all seem to be having a grand ole time talking with one another, even Jules, who she'd expect to be on her side. "Who over there doesn't want me?"

"Aris and Satin," Cyril admits. "They think, due to your age and size that you'll slow us down, that you won't be good in a fight if we need it. Jules wants you in the alliance, while Maren and I could go either way."

"Why would you go either way?" Anahita asks, eyeing him suspiciously. There's no guard near them. Maybe, just maybe she could start the Hunger Games right here if no one pays her any attention.

"Same reasons why Aris and Satin don't want you in. Age," Cyril admits. "That's the only reason, I swear. Maren was the same, I think. We were overruled, as Satin and Aris said that those who wanted you in would be out of the alliance... a vote of four to one."

Anahita backs off a bit, sheathing the kunai back into place. "What do I do to get back in the alliance? Beat Aris and Satin bloody?"

Cyril chuckles at that, but there's a hint of sadness behind his eyes. "I don't think that'll do the trick, but you're more than welcome to try," and then he takes another step towards her, placing a hand on her shoulder, this time not at the threat of being skewered in two. "If you want to be in the Careers, Anahita, prove yourself."

He leaves her at that, stepping back away to the group, Jules disembarking from them, and there is not a happy look on his face. Anahita turns side face after Cyril walks away, taking the scabbard off of her body, holding it in her hand. She can feel the sharpness of the blade lying just underneath her fingers. Her district partner is just about to reach her when Anahita unleashes a scream, throwing the kunai at a dummy near her, the weapon falling out of the scabbard, and then she dives for the target, punching it square in the face.

She'll prove herself alright.

Right up until she has that kunai embedded into their necks.

* * *

**Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #14: Keeping Up With the Rest, and sweet lord baby Jesus this chapter is long. Our first training day is underway, and we've met four new tributes: Seth Cables from District 5, Bloom Estrada from District 12, Roanoke Arkus from District 7, and Anahita Cascade from District 4... quite the colorful bunch. I hate to be a spoiler sport ya'll, but the next chapter, #15, is not going to be about the tributes, but once again we will focus on the Capitol storyline with another three points of view from their perspective, as things are heating up.**

**After that chapter is complete, #16 will have the final four tributes we have not looked at yet, which I am sure you all know by process of elimination. I am curious to know what you all thought so far, and how the cast is starting to stack up. When we've got the full cast introduced I'll do the breakdown by their ages, as we've got quite the skewed list here. I hope you all review and I can't wait for you all to read Chapter #15: Orders From the Top, our next Capitol storyline continuation. Again, so sorry for the damn long word count... they'll probably only get longer and longer from here. Thanks so much you guys! Love you all! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	15. Orders From the Top (Capitol Plot II)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #15: Orders From the Top. This is going to be another Capitol centered POV chapter - three more on the rise, ladies and gents - and then we're back to daily scheduled programming for our tributes in which we've got four left to meet. Last chapter we met Seth Cables of District 5, fully introduced to Bloom Estrada and Roanoke Arkus of District 12 and 7 respectively, and Anahita Cascade from District 4, so I am sure it is very easy to guess which four tributes I have yet to fully show ****_or _****show at all for #16. I have just gotten and survived through my finals week and I have until January 6th before the next semester for my Junior year of college starts, so we're gonna try and bust out as much as we can, guys. I'll probably hold the chapters in reserve so I don't overwhelm you, but still. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #15: Orders From the Top.**

* * *

~ _So sayeth the lord, run away from me and thunder shall strike you down where you stand._

* * *

**_Hale Cornerstone: Victor of the 87th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

Her face is a cracked mirror, lip split open and divided down the center, pale eyes that reek of depression and sickness, snot dripping out of one nostril, but all that can be seen is the faint shimmer in the light that swings back and forth on its nearly broken chain. Hale isn't sure if she's talking about her own face or the face of her visitor, whose eyes are certainly not pale, but in the light, anything can be possible. She's been repeating that to herself over and over again whenever her thoughts are not filled with screaming or trying to keep the broken bones off of the floor, as broken bones elicit pressure, and pressure elicits pain. Everything in a ten mile radius has brought pain for the last week and a half. _Anything is possible. Anything is possible. Saviors. Being saved. Rebellions. Thunderbolts killing me inside a prison cell. Starvation. Malnourishment. All is possible._

She keeps her arms by her side, for Hale is unsure if she could keep them from squeezing around the other victor's throat if she is not careful. Kevia Janelle looks down at her, although it is not done in the way of gloating; Hale herself is a crumpled ball of greyed out rags and silver, almost black hair, everyone looks tall and demeaning from her point of view. Kevia's blonde hair is electric on the backdrop of the white walls, a jolt of lightning to her skin, Hale gasping out in pain from a sharp sting to her abdomen. The food she ate this morning, a meager and crappy biscuit and some sort of tap water smelling of blood and urine threatening to reappear. It seems the bruises from last night have not settled well, and she is still trying to wrap her head around why Lazarus's hits were on a scale she could not fathom.

"What are you doing here?" Hale manages to spit out, a bit of her fire peeking back into the tone, slightly acidic, slightly venomous.

Hale is unable to determine Kevia's mood or reasoning behind the statement. "There's been rumors of your appearance," and Kevia leans down, but not kneeling on the floor - _Of course she wouldn't, _Hale thinks to herself sharply, _she wouldn't want to ruin her perfect exterior -_ "And I wanted to make sure they weren't true," the victor of the 84th Games does a do-over of the prisoner's state of mind, and there's almost a look of disappointment flashing across her face. "Shame. You didn't lose your left ear."

Her response is not something she expects, but the last few days have been full of surprises. "What? Who said I lost an ear?" A bit more of the fire pours back into the system, crackling and bristling with energy.

Kevia shrugs. "I don't know. Just a rumor." She rights herself once more, and Hale takes in her appearance. She's absolutely gorgeous, but that's nothing new, as she's always been. The lips are full and lipstick bright like the blood that drips off of the lightbulb onto the floor, that blonde hair that burns Hale to the core brighter than the light itself. It never goes off, the light. Hale has been, besides the moment last night when she and Hector are dragged out in front of the world to be seen as the vile people they are, living in light for the last ten days. Whenever she closes her eyes, the light is still there to torment her still, mocking, _always_ mocking. It seems though that Kevia has managed to garner a bit of weight around the hips, and she never likes to gain anything.

"You've gained weight," Hale smirks to herself, but she then hisses in pain, unable to clutch at her ankle. Her ankle is broken, or at least in pain, but she isn't sure.

Her visitor's lip curls into something nasty, Kevia opening her mouth to give a response, but the response never comes, Hale raising an eyebrow. Has the fight been stolen out of her too? Kevia crosses her arms over her chest, standing up against one of the walls, and that is certainly a surprise. The victor has never been known to deal with the basely and the lowly of kinds. That reminds Hale then, to wonder, what is Kevia doing? Why has she come into her cell for any other reason than to show off? Kevia picks at something under her nails, sharp talons and claws painted some sort of rusted color. They look downright hideous. Everything about Kevia is hideous, Hale decides. She's held that opinion for quite some time, but some voice in the back of her head has always told her how unfair it is to think that of someone else who has fought in the Hunger Games and nearly died. It doesn't matter anymore, does it, though?

"It's the first day of training today," the blonde woman comments rather absentmindedly.

"And how are your two tributes doing?"

"Cyril and Satin will be fine, trained after all."

Hale swallows a rock into the pit of her stomach. Something about not being able to have a part in the two tributes from District 2's life this year is killing her, and perhaps quite literally. It had been a devastation last year watching Milor and Persephone breathe and bleed their last onto the concrete of that arena, but Hale learns to compartmentalize and pack it all away so she can deal with it another day. This is different. She does not who the chosen are until she sees them last night in their chariot costumes, dressed like those columns or something inanimate. Hale wants to shout at them, to tell them to run away but it wouldn't do anything anyways. No one can run, clearly. No one manages to escape without losing their life. They're the lucky ones, the ones that escape. Milor, Persephone... they're lucky. _Arizona._

She blanches somewhat, and the pain in her ankle flares up again. She hasn't thought of her husband in a good while now, trapped in the world that is forever bright. A shudder passes through her, darting right against her shoulder blades and meeting at her spine, the way his dark hair would caress her shoulders, or how his kisses found that right spot on the center of her spinal cord that made her synapses burst like fireworks. Hale compartmentalizes again, shifting some on the broken tile, her feet all sorts of scratched up.

"How- how are my tributes?"

Kevia locks her jaw, eyes locking in with Hale's, a steeliness she does not expect. The woman is generally not this serious. "Aris is a right minded prick, and Maren is doing well given the circumstances on why she volunteered."

"Ah..." Hale trails off. _Hopeless causes. _It is as she expects. District 2 hasn't had a victor since she won after all, and that is now thirteen years ago. Valencia hadn't been the first Career victor since Hale, someone having hailed from Four, but Districts 1 and 2 had their drought after Hale takes home the gold medal. She squeezes her eyes shut, Arizona passing through for a moment. When she sees Hector after a few months of not seeing him, a Peacekeeper has to hold her up from collapsing and falling to her death. The two of them are - _were, _the voice corrects, _he's dead, you ignorant twat _\- eleven years apart in age but are so-spitting image of one another she would've mistaken the two of them as twins. Hector cries out something to her, it is unintelligible over the thaw of the crowd gathered for the parade, but Hale is unable to look at Hector for the rest of the show until she's taken back to her cell.

That is when Lazarus decides to hit her with his baton so many times across the face and down her legs that she's lost count.

"What are you doing here?" Hale bursts out again, voice riddled with agony and annoyance. "If you came here to gloat then you can leave."

Kevia forces her tongue to the front of her teeth, pushing up on the lip which raises, her mouth closed, a spark of defiance igniting in her gaze. "I didn't come here to gloat," and there's a pause, where that spark is snuffed out like a cigarette, smoldered and billowing cinders in the wind, the gaze is soft. "I needed to see it for myself."

Hale bulks herself back up against the wall, turning her head away, trying to see if she could mesh and meld into the plaster. "Well, you came you and saw," she does not even look at the woman she would've once upon a time considered a friend. "Now get out."

The other victor takes a step forward into the center of the cell, needing to duck underneath the lamp which swings back and forth on its chain. "Listen, Hale, I know I'm not your most favorite person in the world, but-"

"Not my most favorite person?" Hale snaps, and she cannot look at the wall any longer. Oh, if looks could kill, this ingratiating bitch would be a pile of ashes on the floor right about now. "You really think that I'd dislike someone more than you? You betrayed me!" her voice cracks, and it is back to her being a five year-old with her brother looming over her, having told their parents she wrote on the wall, and that had been a spanking she still remembers to this day. "Because of you, my husband is dead. You betrayed me to the woman who killed him and is now ruling over us all!" There are tears falling down her face now, staining her cheeks in crystalline streams, but they are not tears filled with melancholy or sadness; they're burning harshly. "I lost my spouse. I lost my kids... I lost my home because of you," she gestures over around the room with her eyes. Calcite grays must be the in-fashion now. "I am going to spend the rest of my life in a prison cell fettered to the wall where I can't walk. The only people I see are Peacekeepers who beat me and remind me of how many days I've been in here..." her eyes flash a stormy gray, weathered and one filled with the power of nature to rip Kevia to shreds. "The whole damn country thinks I'm a monster..." she shakes her head, but this time the tears that fall are of sadness, salt tingling on her tongue.

Kevia looks down at the floor, shuffling her feet some, one of her heels scraping against the tile. "I never betrayed you, Hale," and the victor looks up at her, mouth open to interrupt, but Kevia continues on talking. "I never gave Bonnie that letter. She already knew. She knew that you and Arizona were a couple and that you had kids. For how long? I have no idea."

It is as if she has been sucker punched. Hale groans in pain, gasping, clutching at her stomach. How... how would that be possible? She and Arizona covered every track they could ever think of. All of the bases were met and attended to, and yet...? _How? _"That can't be. Ari and I-"

"She knew, okay?" Kevia says. "She knew and she didn't tell Calhoun. Maybe she held it for blackmail or leverage, I dunno, but I didn't betray you," and she crouches down in front of Hale now, although there is not much room for her anyways, being cluttered in the ten by ten foot cell. "I'm sorry that this has happened to you. I know I haven't been the best of a person in a good long while, but I'm trying." There are tears in Kevia's eyes. Real tears for once, as Hale has seen the fake ones more times she'd like to admit.

Hale stretches out her other foot, the one that does not feel sprained at the ankle, but she is unable to bring her gaze back up to Kevia. "How are Elias and Arianne doing?"

Kevia balls her tongue on the side of her cheek now, standing back up and going to the door. Her back is turned to Hale, the victor afraid that she'll simply up and leave, and Hale almost motions forward to beg for the woman to stay. She'd want her to leave, she'd beg and cry and scream at whoever would listen to force her away, but something stops her, and something stops Kevia, the blonde having one hand on the door handle, but she does not move downwards. "I think they're okay. I think Bonnie has them living in the mansion with her," and the two victors look back at one another. "I made sure they didn't see Arizona get hit, but I know they definitely heard you," Hale swallows heavily, as her own scream still rings in her ears, causing tinnitus. "I did ask Bonnie later that day before I went back to District 1 what she was going to do with them," the tears return, but truthfully the tears had not left. "As far as Elias and Arianne are concerned, Arizona slipped in front of the train off the platform and got hit. He's in the hospital on life support in a coma," Hale breaks away from looking at Kevia, a sob breaking free from her throat. "As for you, Bonnie says she told them that you're seeking a therapist due to some struggles in the Games and seeing Ari get hit," Kevia shakes her head, both victors crying equally together. "I'm so sorry Hale, I am so sorry..."

She shouldn't be crying. Victors that were Careers don't cry. Hale sniffles, wiping at her face, brushing away the tears that fall. "It's okay," It's not okay, but no one else needs to know that. "There are much worse things my children can know."

Her fellow victor looks through the small, extremely small peephole on the door, one that could barely fit an arm in the slot. She takes a few glances through it on both sides, and then around the room. There's no camera in this one, which Hale has always found odd, as why wouldn't someone need to keep an eye on her? It is the truth though that she isn't going anywhere, so no need for anyone to keep watch if she were to escape. Kevia walks back up to Hale, placing her hands on her shoulders. Hale tries shrinking away from her, as her fellow victor's face is a plethora of emotions, as if some sort of madness had taken over.

"Something's happening, Hale," Kevia says cryptically. Hale shakes her head with a frown, to incite she continues. "Rennie, the day after Bonnie overthrew everyone made a message and showed it to the entire Capitol," Hale raises her eyebrows in shock, but she is incapable of producing any sound. Another sucker punch to the gut, perhaps. "Two days ago, morning of the reapings, I don't know who did it, Rennie's message got broadcasted to the districts," Kevia's eyes alight with a soulful fire. "All of them, Hale. Everyone single person in Panem has seen this video of Rennie saying what Bonnie has done."

Hale's heart is overwrought with emotion that she is unable to cry or speak, she just stares at Kevia in a frozen shaw of disbelief. She may not trust her anymore, but there is no reasoning for Kevia to lie, apologizing and telling her about her kids after all. She shakes her head, looking down at the floor, at her manacles. "I-" she starts, but nothing else follows, she stuck on saying I over and over again.

Kevia removes her hands from Hale's shoulders, walking back to the door, one hand on the handle. "Someone's coming, Hale, and they bring fire," she locks eyes with the prisoned victor once more, a chill sliding through Hale's bones. "They bring fire, and they bring death."

Before Hale can ask another question or utter another word, her fellow victor is gone, blonde hair vanishing behind the walls, leaving her behind with a newfound sense of hope fluttering in her heart, and the best news she's heard in the last two weeks of her life.

* * *

**_Bonnie Rodney: President of Panem P.O.V_**

* * *

An air of disquiet settles over the mansion. Bonnie's felt in coming ever since her husband's body is buried, her tears being real, the ones that stain her cheeks, but the crying face itself is fake. She ascends to the throne, has a few other Peacekeepers replace the old guard, those thrown in prison, and there are some new tapestries put up in the mansion of her own insignia, a B locked inside the vice of an R, painted in a halcyon color on a navy backdrop. It is another reminder of what she has accomplished, but despite all of this, Bonnie feels something else stirring on her skin. A staleness that she can taste in the air, a plasticity that sticks to flesh, pulling on the flaps of her forearms like taffy, and when the flaps break, there is no amount of morphine that could settle the agony.

Bonnie sits in her office, fingers itching for the phone, to call someone, _anyone, _but she's spoken to Lazarus three times already and it is not even the late afternoon. She finds it hard to believe, but being president in the Capitol, over Panem, while training is taking place means there is not the most exciting adventures taking place elsewhere. The landscape has been quiet, too quiet for her liking, ever since the traitor who shall not be named has had his poison spread out everywhere over all the districts. Taking to Pollux's mind immediately, Bonnie decides to send out a poll to the Capitol, and the same poll to the Career districts only. Calhoun had done a poll too, if she recalls correctly. Something about having children, all because she had been pregnant with one. "_And she's not even yours..."_ she thinks to herself, reaching for the phone once more before sinking back into the comforting leather feel of the seat.

This is torturous. Is there anyone else out in the Capitol whom she can brand a traitor? She doesn't want to go down to the Gamemaker Center, having spent the last six or seven years there designing mutts. She misses them, actually, those creations of hers with fangs the size of her forearm, a wingspan that'd extend the entire outside balcony, ferocious black eyes the color of the deepest abyss, and a roar that makes her heart burst in adoration. Those used to be her children, but now she has a real one made of her own flesh and blood lying in a nursery somewhere. Constantine has changed the Gamemaker Center and it has only been ten days since Lewlyn's passing - she cannot help but smirk to herself when thinking of that, the power and the relief she felt watching that redheaded lying demon bleed out into the waters of her own tub - but there is something different about the Center. Bonnie has stopped by once just to get Constantine affiliated with the newness of her position, showing her Lewlyn's old office. There's a picture of the traitor still sitting on the desk, someone must've missed it - they've been thrown in a prison cell already, no need to worry - Bonnie smashing it onto the desk, a few shards of glass embedding into her fingers. She rips them out herself, bids Constantine adieu and books it back to her grotto.

She has given free reins to Constantine in the project of overseeing the 101st Games as Bonnie herself, working with Lewlyn were 90% of the way done with the next arena by the time the 100th Hunger Games had started, but Constantine wishes to do everything over again. "_Not the mutts," _Bonnie orders, left eye twitching, fingers wanting to strangle the old bat. "_You touch the mutts, I'll rip your eyes out of their sockets._" The threat is taken well, as Bonnie has seen the new preparations; she likes them enough, she supposes, but they're not the masterpieces the old team had done together. She has to give Lewlyn that, at the very least. Despite what she thought of the woman personally, she had been a well-deserved person for the Head Gamemaker position, her designs brilliant. Jealousy, perhaps.

Her saving grace from the boredom and realistic chance of her picking some random citizen on the street as the next liar enters in the form of Pollux Aetos. Bonnie's face immediately turns into a smile, she sitting straight up in her chair, it squeaking from the sudden movement. In the Master of Ceremonies' hand there is a folder, manila in color, plain and nothing inspiring about it, but she knows what's inside the folder and that is all that matters. Her heart drums in her chest with anticipation, a burning anticipation for him to just spit out the damn results, but of course he won't speak without her permission. It is the one thing that seems to have survived from her overthrow of the system; the world burns away and she commands it all, but Pollux still stands by her side, and he has not left her. Unfortunately no other talents suit Pollux besides star power, and she can't see him designing death traps, so he'll stay as Interviewer.

"Results from the poll?" she asks.

He nods, seemingly out of breath, face flushed, dark hair up in a whirlwind. He must've just gotten the results and ran over to her office as fast as he could. "They came in about ten minutes ago and-"

"They good?" Bonnie interrupts him, and then his face sours, downturned into a frown. She matches the expression likewise. "What are the numbers, Pollux?" He doesn't say anything, Bonnie leaning forward even further, to the point she is creating a line across her stomach at the indention of the desk. "Pollux, what do the numbers say?"

"Eighty-five to fifteen," Pollux answers after a moment of deliberation. She sees it play out on his face, the look of hesitancy.

It isn't the end of the world. Bonnie knows she'd be foolish if she were to be expecting a total one-hundred percent in the Capitol and the Career districts to not disbelieve Rennie's message. Fifteen percent might be cutting it, however, as that means nearly one-fifth of the group that got the survey believe something in the Avox's propaganda. "That isn't the worst. Other presidents in times past have-"

Pollux shakes his head, face having gone entirely pale, as if he had not just run an entire marathon from the studio over to the mansion and up those ridiculously opulent flights of stairs. "Bonnie, it's the other way around. Eighty-five to fifteen."

Oh. _Oh. _Bonnie leans back in her chair, her breath being sucked out of her. Her throat seizes up, she gripping onto the edge of the desk, squeezing her eyes shut. No... no, no, no this cannot be happening. This isn't possible. Eighty-five percent of the people in the Capitol, and Districts 1, 2, and 4 believe Rennie in any capacity? That is not even asking all the other districts, 3, 5-12, where those numbers would be at an even higher skew as the Capitol is no favorite anywhere else besides the Capitol. "No," she says, shaking her head in disbelief. "That- that can't be. Pollux, there must be some sort of mistake. A polling error or-"

"Fifteen percent surveyed do not believe a single word of Rennie's testimony," the Interviewer reads, his eyes not once lifting off the page. It's a smart tactic, she has to give him that, for even though it is not Pollux's fault for the numbers being the shit that they are, she is ready to devour him. She doesn't have a Peacekeeper gun on her, unfortunately, but she could improvise. "Eighty-five percent surveyed, however, believe at minimum one of the three things said in his testimony. They believe either you killed Lewlyn, killed Calhoun, or falsely accused Arizona, Hale, and Hector of a crime they didn't commit and then threw Arizona in front of a train."

There is a high chance of her wanting to pick up the phone and call Lazarus, to demand her Head Peacekeeper to come in and bash Pollux's brains about on the wall. She'd promote him as a Secretary of War or something afterwards too, but she needs him, she needs her interviewer. Bonnie scratches at the back of her neck. What would Calhoun do? Her husband had been no perfect man, clearly, and there were times where numbers were not favorable in the slightest that he stood tall. She can't rally for people's executions simply because she is not believed. She needs to lie better. "What was the one people believed the most?"

"Lewlyn," Pollux answers. "Hands down."

That has never caused a war before, that doesn't put her at ease, but it does not accelerate her heart rate even more. Head Gamemakers go all the time in Panem, and she's seen it once where the change of the guard had been so quick one Head Gamemaker never even got to get to an arena before being replaced. Replacement for a Head Gamemaker is not being handed a pink slip and an honorary medal... Bonnie has seen several corpses in times past, when Coriolanus Snow is president in that bygone era that feels like it had been a millennium ago, swinging from the balcony of the mansion, bodies left to rot out in the summer heat until carrion and birds picked away at whatever bits were accessible. The world knew of her discontent for Lewlyn, it doesn't bother her. It shouldn't bother her, there needed to be a changing of the guard soon anyways, Lewlyn had been Head Gamemaker for nearly twenty years, and that had been way too long.

"_Like you replacing your husband?" _she thinks to herself. "_Where has that gotten you? Was it time for a new president?" _and Bonnie shudders at her inner voice, one that is not full of the sweetness in her normal one. She picks at the lining of the desk, still unable to look at Pollux. "What is the percentage of people who believe all three?"

"Madam President, are you sure? I-"

"Pollux?" Bonnie locks her jaws, and this time she looks at him. The using of her title is not lost on her. He calls her Bonnie when he wants to, on a friendly chord, but 'Madam President' when things fall south. "Just say it. You've never stopped speaking the truth."

He closes the manila folder, throwing it onto her desk. "Forty percent, Bonnie. Forty percent of people here in the Capitol, and the Career districts believe all of what Rennie said."

She grabs at the folder and throws it on the floor. "Goddammit!" she screams at the top of her lungs, standing up and pushing her chair back with a ferocity she did not know she had in her. Pollux scoots back away from her some, a look of fear plastered over his face. Bonnie runs a hand through her hair, going over to one of the windows. The Capitol is a gorgeous place, platinum walls and buildings that shine silver in the sunlight, cobblestone walkways exploding with color as citizens in their outlandish outfits walk by... the topiaries and the gardens, blooming with color and vibrancy as large emerald forests spring up in random pockets. It is a gorgeous city, a gorgeous city full of liars. Then, without missing a beat, "And what about you Pollux?" She turns to look back at him, the interviewer standing awkwardly up against one of the chairs. "What do you believe?"

"You, Madam President," he says without hesitation. Smart boy.

Bonnie keeps her back resting on the windowsill. Where did she go wrong? What did she do wrong to spur this on? Forty percent... those numbers are unheard of in this context. She takes a look around the office, at the walls and her chair and everything that makes the mansion hers. Has it all been worth it? Has it really been worth it?

"Of course it has..." she tells herself. That is all she needs to do. Sacrifices must be made to reach the higher points of glory, and sometimes those moments of glory require bloodshed. She rather likes the way blood stains her skin, dried crimson puddles acting as a backdrop to her pale skin, run over in ruby waves. Then, aloud, at Pollux, "We need to do damage control, Pollux. These numbers are concerning. I can't be president if the people who are supposed to trust me don't."

Without him batting an eye, he looks at her directly, and it is as if they are the old team again, the ones who decided back on her couch all those months ago that it is Lewlyn Davis's time to die. "What do you have in mind, Madam President?"

Bonnie has a million and one ideas circulating through her head, as she always does now, but one sticks out to her in particular, one that sounds favorable over all the others.

Concerning a Head Gamemaker and a 4th Quarter Quell victor, there's one that shines brighter than all the rest.

"I want to break a glass ceiling, Pollux," she says.

She's going to do more than break a glass ceiling by the time the dust has settled.

* * *

**_Valencia Shale: Victor of the 100th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

She can still feel the ricochet of the slap vibrating along the surface of her cheek. Valencia gingerly touches the wounded spot, a red welt appearing in the dead center, now slightly bumped, and she cannot stop running her fingers over it. It is rather foolish of her, she'll admit now as hindsight is a bitch, that she has gotten too comfortable in the Capitol. Her victory tour is an odd two weeks, spending the last extra two days in the Capitol where she attends more balls than her feet know what to do with and she's eaten more food than her stomach can handle, but it is the sense of being a celebrity that settles over her the hardest. Growing up in the Academy, all she knows is violence, it is all she sees every day for nine years straight as she watches potential new trainees such as herself get their assess kicked on the floor. Whenever one of the District 1 kids go down in the arena, training is cancelled for the day, but instead there are other exercises held as to see what the tribute had done wrong to initiate their death. Valencia believes she is the master of these quizzes, for it always something easy such as trusting the wrong ally, or eating a poisonous berry or _something, _but something Valencia realizes is that the answer had never been bad luck or being screwed over. It is always the tribute's fault.

It is rather ironic, then, Valencia supposes, that she got to her victory, having made it so far by foolishly trusting. Marcus is a dead and done deal, but when she tries to think beyond that fatal mistake, that being what breaks the alliance in the first place, the amount of times she calls herself an idiot does nothing to quell the pain she feels at her stupidity. Persephone's lips up against hers had broken another rule she learns in the Academy: to not create romances, but all Valencia thinks it is then is just another moment of friendship, to be breaking the first rule of trusting your forced allies. In another universe, they would have all been friends, maybe even Maisey too, but Valencia doesn't like thinking of them anymore. Bonnie's slap brings it all back in a resounding tide of memories that cause her to cry into her bedsheets that night, returning back to bed, limping although there had been no wounds inflicted on her legs. Despite her being out of the arena for a year, she is not free from the violence.

Valencia looks back behind her to make sure no one is following her. It'd be rather silly to think that but she goes ahead and does it anyways. Bonnie has given her free reign of the Capitol streets when she is not teaching her about political systems and ruling and all of that, but she can never be too sure. There are no hooligans in white or thugs with batons and whips chasing after her, screaming her name. She's also luckily free of anyone recognizing her on the streets, as Valencia does not know if she has it in her to say hello to another fan dying for an autograph. She is no celebrity, she doesn't feel like it anymore after Bonnie hits her. The victory tour is an odd experience for her, being shown off to Panem as someone to be revered when all she did had been outlive twenty-three other unlucky dumbasses like her. Valencia knows now that just because Careers volunteer for the Games it doesn't make them any less unsympathetic... she and all the other volunteers have been simply born with that unlucky trait of feeling like they could win the Hunger Games, but lucky for her she does. She does not want to be in one of those wooden boxes. It isn't her, it'll never be her. She hasn't stopped fighting, and until the light goes out will she return to the Earth.

There's been talk around the mansion, around the streets of the Capitol, Valencia unsure if they have any merit or not, of some sort of underground war deal, led by a man cloaked all in black throwing up anti-Capitol, anti-Bonnie propaganda. She has yet to see one of the fliers, but there has also been talk of certain victors being in on the project, she relieved to hear her name has not been thrown in the ring, cause she is sure that there is no underground rebellion she has all of a sudden up and joined without her own consent. Before she leaves, Bonnie stops her, the president in her office, and Valencia's heart leaps into her throat. A certain edge has not yet rubbed off, it sticking to Valencia's skin like sweat droplets, afraid that Bonnie will ask her about the rumors and how she heard it, for the threats given to her last night are more than possible in becoming reality. Bonnie does not mention that in the slightest.

"_I'm sorry," __she says._

_Valencia does a doubletake, as if she hadn't heard her correctly. "What?"_

_"I'm sorry, Valencia," Bonnie repeats, but she does not get up from her chair. "I shouldn't have hit you last night."  
_

_Valencia nods numbly, but she doesn't respond, instead wandering out of the mansion, out into the streets of the Capitol, the sun warming her skin, a warmth she has missed as she shivers and shudders underneath her blankets. _

It has been another good ten months are so she has last stepped into the tribute elevator, trapped in the prison walls of tombstone gray and the automated voice announcing '_Going up_'. Valencia remembers her last conversation in these elevators, in one of her evening gowns for one of the multiple parties she attends to, Kevia's hands light and airy but ever so there on the small of her back. Valencia wanted nothing more but to slip out of the dress into a hot bath and slowly roll her head on the edge of the tub, relaxing out the knot in the back of her skull.

_She has her hands wrapped around a lock of her dark hair - no longer blonde, it has never been blonde, her hair has always been this shade of black - and Kevia is staring straight at her, sighing ever so often as they're taking the elevator about to District 12's floor, taking the penthouse suite. Kevia frowns, resting one hand on a strand of her own, the color Valencia envies for. "Valencia, stop obsessing over your hair. It's just your hair color."_

_Valencia locks eyes with her former mentor immediately, whatever look of normalcy and complacency distorting into one of confusion. "I'm not obsessing, I just-"_

_"Ever since Calhoun and Bonnie had your hair dyed, every free moment I get with you, you're always touching your hair and complaining about it," she moves closer to her old protégé. "It is a hair color, Valencia, not your identity. Learn to get over it." _

_"I can't just get over it, Kevia," Valencia snaps. "It may not mean much to you, but I had blonde hair, not black! I had my hair color changed because I didn't seem likable, yet you got to keep your hair color? I can't change mine back as long as they're alive because I'll be forced to keep it. I'm not a monster or a villain... I volunteered for the Hunger Games and won, but I did not come out meaner, and yet the country wants to hate me for it? I-" she stops herself, the new victor biting down on her tongue. "Changing my hair color is more than that, Kevia, and I thought you would know that."_

_Their elevator stops at the District 12 floor, Kevia at a loss for words. Valencia has never spoken like that to her, she's never spoken like that to any of her elders, ever._

Valencia's current elevator stops as well on her primed destination, the doors opening, and the person she had come to see moving forward to step into the elevator. She jumps, but so do they, the two of them startling each other, but the moment she catches herself and recuperates, a smile dances across her face. Exactly the person she needs to see. Although it had only been a slap across the face because she overleaps her station, stepping out of what the boundaries allow, it is more than that, it is a lot more than that. It is more than her having to live with a different hair color or having Panem view her like some sort of devil for doing what the other twenty-three other tributes in her arena had to do, simply because she didn't want to die. If there is indeed some sort of underground team fighting Bonnie, that means there could be future generations saved from things far worse than slaps across the face, or being forced to change a part of their identity without their consent.

"Valencia!" cries out victor Criston Pellock from District 6, he dressed finely for a walk, and his eyes appraise over her in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

She does not have much time to waste, and lesser than that to spend, so she cuts to the chase. "I want in, Criston," and at that, the other victor furrows his brow, not understanding. "The rebellion that Rennie is leading, The Phoenixes? I want in."

She survived a Hunger Games, and Valencia torments herself day in and day out over that, over what she could've done differently, who she could've saved.

What would it look like to try and survive a war?

* * *

**Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #15: Orders From the Top, the continuance of our Capitol storyline for Bombs and Bullets, and yep, things are moving on this chessboard of chess and corpses - to borrow Thorne's line from one of his reviews - but there is so much I cannot share. I know that the POV's in this chapter are of extremely varied lengths, something I am not insanely proud of, nor am I insanely proud of this chapter either like I have been in the past, but I needed it out and what I do have I am at the very least content with. We finally got our first point of view with Hale, and there's only one more Capitol character I've yet to give a POV, but he'll get one soon.**

**Next chapter, #16: Pushed to the Limits will be another tribute training chapter where I reveal the final four tributes - again, easy process of elimination - and then everyone's been introduced and the entire story is going to push even further into high gear and start kicking some good ole SYOT butt. I hope you all do review and let me know how this chapter went and anything else you can think of, as something feels a bit off - maybe a bit burned out, but my semester is ending in a few days so I'm good there on that front - because I know I'll start #16 earlier than I would plan, as I always do for everything I write. Have a great day! Love you all! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	16. Pushed to the Limits (Intros VIII)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #16: Pushed to the Limits. This chapter, ladies and gents, is our final tribute introduction chapter where everyone will have finally been met. The last four tributes you shall be introduced to today are Audhild Olthono, from District 9, by 66asmvr, Cambric Vogel, from District 8, by dyloccupy, Satin Spinel, from District 1, by Mistycharming, and Ponty Carr, from District 6, by Queenofinsanity: I've got quite the colorful cast today, ladies and gents. We're focusing on Training Day 2 today, and then moving onto the latter half of the Pre-Game phase with Scores, Interviews, and final moments with some Capitol dealing plot sprinkled in. I am very excited to have the entire cast introduced now, and finally I can get into solidifying everyone. Hope you all enjoy Chapter #16: Pushed to the Limits.**

**And very briefly I want to say thank you to thorne98 for his cover photo he made for the story - can be viewed on Desktop Mode of the website if you read on your phone, for mobile users - as I think it was a much better improved version than before. While I am at it, once again, go and check his exceptional SYOT Death is the Rule, where I have three lucky tributes in that piece.**

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_~ And so sayeth the Lord, do not feel angry when the wind blows in the opposite direction, for otherwise you'll be blown away in the storm_

**_Audhild Olthono: District 9 Female (12)_**

* * *

He doesn't trust her. She can feel it, the way he looks at her with one of those pointed glances that balances halfway between a look of fear and anger. She doesn't mean it, she didn't mean it, but twelve-year-old Audhild Olthono has gone and done it anyways. She didn't mean to punch the kid in the gut, but there is just that smug look on his face to the point where she feels like he deserves it, so Audhild does it. It had been a good hit, given her district partner doubles over in pain and he is not faking the pained expression on his face, but Audhild doesn't mean to also run away. There is a lot she needs to think through, but she can't blame herself entirely. She wants to blame the stupid, stupid Capitol and this stupid Hunger Games idea. It has her thrown into a loop, she swears it, where she can't concentrate, and the walls vibrate in strange jutting motions, shadows creating static pictures along the edge of the room.

She tries eating her breakfast as normally as she can, slowly nibbling away at a piece of bacon. Audhild looks at Jason across a plate of pancakes, so massive to the point where she nearly cannot see over them, he looking at her briefly, but then he looks away. Neither one of their mentors are up yet, the two having woken up a bit earlier, but only Audhild admits why she wakes up before the sun is even up. A group of Avoxes had already made breakfast by the time they're up, and all the two of them have been doing for the last half hour is eat, eat, eat. The second day of training isn't for another half hour at least, starting supremely bright and early. She's surprised she even made it out of bed, frankly, as the calling to stay in bed and ignore the dues of training are very much there, highlighted yesterday after Audhild watches all the Careers do their thing.

Audhild is primarily fixated on that District 4 girl, but she doesn't know her name. They are the same body mass, look similar to one another - it takes her a good few glances to get the distinction out of her head - and watching how the little girl absolutely shreds the dummies to pieces has her gulping, and her grip on the knife she is practicing with no longer feels as strong as it did before. When the Career is finished - how can someone so small and so young be on the same level as a seventeen year-old from Two? - and there's a sea of plastic floating across the Center floor, she locks eyes with the girl for a second, and Audhild visibly moves away from the spot at the knife throwing station, allowing the Career from District 1 who had been patiently waiting - Audhild had only been there for a few moments anyways - to take her spot up to bat. The encounter startles her enough that Audhild quits for the day, even as she watches Jason get pummeled into oblivion by a trainer on the mat.

"_Tuck in your elbows," she shouts at him, he looking at her with a clear look of disdain, but it is good advice and Audhild has had to deal with a fight in the same way before. It is up to him if he wants to take the advice or not, but it isn't her problem anymore. _

Audhild sets her plate away from her, full at the moment. She hasn't tasted food this opulent in a long time, and sitting next to the freaking mayor's kid, he's probably eaten like this every single day of the week his entire life. She doesn't want to be jealous of him, but it has already sorta slightly kind of happened at this point. He isn't the most handsome thing in the world, she'll give him that, being four years older than she is and another seven to eight inches taller, but there's a certain demeanor in Jason that she is having a hard time washing away from looking at him. She turns her head to the side, frowning, that causing him to pause in his eating, fork halfway to his mouth covered in eggs. Jason sets his fork down, clearing his throat. "What, Audi?"

It's her name, well her nickname rather, and she prefers when people call her by that short name. She's wondered why her parents did that, naming her something so out of left field, but she's never garnered the courage to ask. Unlike the last time she garnered the courage to... if she looked bad then people should've seen the _other- _Audhild cuts the memory off short, biting on the inside of her cheek, something she does frequently to keep herself from going down pitfalls. "Nothing," she says, strewing one of the pieces of sausage through the puddle of syrup piled onto the plate. "You- you remind me of someone." She sees the person clearly, lanky and long like Jason, with a darker shade of brown to their hair than Jason's, and much darker than her own oak brown color that nearly glows auburn in the sunlight. The kid's face, gone pale from the blood loss, scarlet seeping out of his side, bright, _bright _diamond eyes gone dark with a haze of shock and pain, Audhild stumbling away from the blade, hands shaking and-

"Like who?" Jason asks, having set down his fork, placing a hand underneath his cheek.

"Someone," Audhild's face burns crimson, flushed at the top of her forehead. "It doesn't matter."

_It doesn't matter. _Someone else has said this to her before, but she cannot remember exactly. All she remembers is that dark, _dark _room and the lashing of the whip, her dainty screams bouncing and breaking along the rivets of the wall, and the warmness of blood seeping down her back. It might've been the parents of the boy, or her parents, or the Peacekeeper holding that dastardly torture device, _it doesn't matter. _It may have been four months since then, but all Audhild can feel even now, especially when standing underneath the shower spring, some rusty little faucet that only works half the time, is the way the individual droplets feel like the clash of leather onto flesh, to the point where Audhild jumps out of the shower after turning off the water, as if it is going to strike out with a tiger's bite.

Having five siblings, they all being brothers, and she being the only girl, as well as the youngest out of all of them, Audhild knows it is wrong of her to feel jealous, just like how she feels about Jason, but it's there regardless, no matter how hard she tries to fight it. Perhaps that is why she finds Jason so untrustworthy. He doesn't _seem _to be, but she has been wrong about every single one of her decisions in her life up to this point, so another one won't hurt. Her parents have never full out said it, but she sees it in the way they do not stick up for her after the excruciating lashings, they seeming to go on for hours on end, that her parents are not putting the fight in for their little sweet baby girl, the daughter they've always wanted, the daughter that saves the Olthono family from total collapse... Audhild cries herself to sleep for two weeks straight. It is that her parents do not even consider why she stabs the kid in the first place. Ironically, they don't even ask _how _she manages to steal the knife away from the cutlery, of which there's only eight knives in their house altogether. Her father skips over the question as if it doesn't even concern him.

What matters is her end result, her brutal end result which has the boy she stabs writhing in pain on the floor, blood pouring out of his mouth, and Audhild shrieking apologies of all kinds in languages and tongues she did not know existed. The Peacekeeper who grabs her by the shoulders does not need to be _that _rough in throwing her about, as the stupid asshole bully is alive after all, for she only gets a few inches in before freaking out and letting go of the blade, it hanging limply in the boy's side, he crying in so much agony that it sounds like a tribute being killed on the screens while the Games are going on. It is not her fault she's born short, nor that her brothers are all more talented than her at all the athletic stuff... it does not excuse anyone to go and start picking on her at lunch, knocking away her tray, a single slap across the face at times... desperate times call for desperate measures, do they not?

She still isn't sure what crosses over her when she spots him from across the courtyard, bullying some other kid, a boy that looks like her if the gender had bene reversed, and all Audhild sees is a ledger drowning in red, and she _lunges, _whipping the knife out of her backpack pocket, and stabbing him straight in the side, but the scream from the kid she has just struck wipes away the ledger, she freaking out, blood splattering onto her hands, onto the handle of the blade, and some spraying into the kid's face that she had just rescued.

Audhild feels sorry, she thinks. She's not quite sure, truthfully, but it does mean she no longer has to go to school there. The Peacekeepers have labeled her a danger to her scholastic learning in a public environment - always the eloquent writers, those Capitol plastic scumbags - and it means Audhild is home-schooled now. It does mean that her brothers are now known as the Olthono gang, a group of kids who could snap in seconds if they like. Her very first reaping, shortly after her first run-in with the law on some sort of attempted murder attack - Audhild does not mean to wish to murder him, nor did she even want to _stab him, _things just kinda sorta happened - and she's reaped. She stands there like a gawking chicken, and that is before reality actually hits her like a sledgehammer to the gut, and the sobs wrench forth, and she's crying just like that bully she brings to his knees, and the Peacekeepers are hauling her to the stage, she shaking her head back and forth, shouting obscenely, "_Not the whip! Please, not the whip! I can't bear it again!"_

The poor girl gets something better, doesn't she? A brutal death in the Hunger Games, as she's seen plenty of District 9 kids go in, and none of them come out of the belly of the beast walking upright on both legs, but always in wooden crates fragranced with some sort of Capitolistic stench to hide the musk of rotting flesh and rigor mortis, never smiling, eyes closed, hands folder over one another, and the body bleached, naked... Audhild has never seen a crate up close, as she can only guess what her strongly visceral reaction would even be, but it will not be her embracing the Grim Reaper with wide freaking arms.

She shakes her head, closing her eyes briefly, pushing her plate away from her. Audhild isn't hungry anymore. "I'm sorry, Jason," she says suddenly, without much hesitation, or _any _hesitation, she looking directly at him after she opens her eyes.

Jason has another bite of eggs half up to his mouth at this point, he setting the fork down once more. "For what, Audi?"

"I shouldn't have punched you on the train ride," Audhild grimaces at the memory. She didn't _mean _to cause him any pain... but damn if it wasn't a great freaking punch. "I was just-" she sighs to herself. "I was very high strung, I think."

Her district partner nods rather shallowly, almost as if it never happens. "I understand, Audi," and then, sliding some of the eggs across his plate, "It was a damn good punch," she smirks to herself, as the mayor's kid takes his full bite after being interrupted so many times. She watches him chew rather absentmindedly, he swallowing, a certain look of refreshing quality on his face. "Fresh start?"

That comes as a surprise. Audhild is confused... is there anything such as a fresh start? It seems that Jason doesn't require much to be convinced, huh?

She reaches across the table to shake his hand, something that her parents have indeed taught her despite all the absentee parenting. "Fresh start, Jason," she agrees, shaking on it.

However, as she reaches back to sit up straight again, the pit in her stomach that only gets deeper and deeper when her name is plucked out of the reaping bowl, or as she slams her fist into Jason's stomach, it gnaws at the growing crater once more. If things are mended and the burnt bridge has been extinguished, then why does her heart still hammer in her chest?

Why does it seem like things are not going to be starting off on the same foot with a clean slate?

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**_Cambric Vogel: District 8 Male P.O.V (18)_**

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"I saw that coming from a mile away," he shakes his head at his district partner, trying to hide the disdain in his voice, failing the way Magdalena looks up at him with a scowl, she clutching at her hurt knee, it cut open down the middle, a thick gash starting to leak out of the liquid all men share. This must be procedural at this point, but Cambric spots the way his district partner is going to take a tumble the moment she steps forward with a locked leg towards the next trainer. The billy club hits Magdalena in the chest, she making a faint cry in pain, but her collapse onto the floor is less than graceful as she bangs her exposed knee up against the chaffed side of the build. "I thought you knew not to run forward with a locked leg? Or does common sense not come to you easily?"

It is a rather harsh question, especially as she's glaring daggers at him now, but it has been like this between the two of them, this sharp banter, full of his sarcasm and insults he only _partially _means, he swears it, medical honor and all. There's been a lot of times in his life where the injured party has not endured the simple task of following common sense, and he asks the same question to everyone after that, kind of nervous tick of his, he supposes. There are a few tributes off in the distance snickering, Cambric looking at them and tossing them a glare, one of them being the male from District 2, who locks eyes with Cambric, but he doesn't cease the amused look in his eyes. The Capitol medic, or at least one of them, rushes over to them. "Can you stand?" he asks his district partner.

Magdalena's look at him suggests insanity, as if why wouldn't she be able to walk? A hit to the chest is no easy force to blunt off without feeling some slight stinging or obstruction of breathing. "I'm fine, Cambric," she says, but then hisses once more, clutching at her knee. The scarlet leaking from it is a bit more copious, and he can already hear the groans some official must be giving at having to clean it up. But it wouldn't be them cleaning it, would it? It'd be some Avox being shouted at by four different higher-ups, and Cambric would want to knock all of them into oblivion for speaking to someone in that manner. The other random tributes have stopped their snickering, but he is not going to forget that guy from Two's stare, partly due to his handsome nature, but the way there is a lack of shine in those pupils, the darkness floods away the other remaining aspects.

The medic has reached them at this point, crouching down, but doesn't say anything. The training regiment continues as it had been, as after Magdalena is the girl from District 1, Satin, if Cambric recalls her name right. He takes his eyes off of Magdalena for a moment, just to be transfixed as Satin seems to do quick work of the fighters, the obstacle course being completed in under a minute, but it his district partner gripping onto the sleeves of his training uniform that rounds his attention back to her. "What hurts?" Cambric asks, and he has to quick himself mentally, for his tone is way too damn worried, throwing him off of his game. He shouldn't care about her, he really shouldn't, not when he has to get home over her dead body, but in this moment in time, all he sees is another child from up above suffering, and he needs to be able to heal that suffering.

"My chest," Magdalena says weakly, placing a hand there, and he notices that she's trembling. "Did I break a rib or crush a lung? It- it hurts to breathe and-" she starts to hiccup, Magdalena's eyes widening, and her grip tightens, she starting to run out of breath. Luckily the Capitol medic is immediate, her leg being patched up with a thick strip of gauze wrapped several times over the wound, a shimmering ointment seeping out around the edges. Cambric looks around at the other tributes, all of them being together for the joint exercise on the obstacle course, the wiry and timid looking boy from Three going and being felled on the second trainer which a sweeping undercut to the leg, causing the kid to fall out over himself. No one else is paying them any attention, but if it gets any worse...

He thanks the official, who once again does not say anything, grabbing Magdalena by the hand and hoisting her up to her feet. "Can you walk?" he asks. It's an evolved question, as he's moving past the simple orderlies, and Magdalena nods her head, perhaps a bit more frantic than he'd like, but it is better he does this now than rather having a district partner getting ridiculed for having a panic attack. Inhibitions are not weaknesses, a distinction he's learned throughout his life, and if anyone wants to get in her face about it can meet their face with his fist if they're not careful. Cambric knows he does not look like the most intimidating person in the world, what with his rather lanky appearance, a darker brown shade, and luscious amber eyes where he seems to fit in the Career pack more than anything, but that is a different story for another day. Looks can be deceiving, and not to judge a book by its cover... Cambric's fists can do enough talking if need be.

The two of them wander off to one of the more secluded areas of the training center, away from all the tributes, as now the girl from Seven is running through the course, and he watches as she _hits _one of the trainer's in the chest with a kick, and immediately a whistle is blown, she forced to cancel the exercise, as the tributes are not allowed to fight off or ward off the trainers, it is purely a dodging exercise. Cambric doesn't do amazingly hot, getting less than half way through the course before giving up, as two trainers were about to rush him, and it is either two direct hits to the face, or a possible broken knee, so he cries out uncle. If anyone wants to call him a wimp or a weakling, he'll gladly welcome it and then shove a spear into their sides. Magdalena isn't walking as briskly as he'd want, but it is better than limping or being entirely incapable of movement, for she seems more than capable.

Magdalena presses the small of her back up against the wall, Cambric crouching in front of her, but not so as to block all of her vision off with just him, for he's not sure how that would go, and he does not need to make her anxiety worse, if that is what she's having, after all. "Can I?" he asks, motioning forward with his hands. She nods at him rather feebly, a demure look replacing the typical brashness he's seen in her the last three days. He places the fingers on his right hand to her pulse, the left hand going just underneath her breasts - this is why he asks, primarily, as he has never, ever touched a woman here before - to feel at where the lungs would be, before shifting his fingers over to check her ribs, on both sides. The upper right side, as he gently applies pressure, telling her the entire time, elicits a short intake of breath from Magdalena, but it is only that spot that seems to do so.

He removes his hands from her body, Magdalena's lower lip quivering slightly. "W- well?"

Cambric hopes that his smile is warm enough to do her some good. He's dealt with way worse before, surely, but maybe not in a high-stress environment as this one where death is the key component for all the occupants in the building. "Your pulse is fine, Magdalena. I can't feel any broken or cracked ribs, but maybe some minor bruising, and your lungs are fine..." relief washes over him at the way Magdalena's body, which has been tense the entire time, softens and folds as if she's sinking into the wall some. "How's the leg?"

She swishes her foot to the side some so it causes her knee to bend. "Some stinging, but nothing too bad..." and she stops, looking at him, he raising an eyebrow. "You're a District 8 field medic, aren't you?" Magdalena asks. He nods, and then pauses for a moment, staring at her face, she bristling some. "What?"

He shakes his head, quipping a small smile. "Just- just a memory of something, it's nothing."

It isn't nothing, and he has never been a nothing sort of guy, not in the slightest. It had just been another normal day in the hospital, but Cambric is stationed in one of the makeshift ones down in the lower end of District 8 near the factories, where the sky is a tainted, brackish black as the fumes rise into the clouds. One minute he's fine, stocking away bandages, and then an explosion rocks the tent, causing the flaps to fly open, and the ground to shake. Rushing outside, he cannot believe his eyes as a large fireball, perhaps the biggest explosion he's ever seen in his life rips into the air, fouling the already darkening canvas with another pile of soot. Shortly after, as a few other officials who have had more training than he has rush forward, pulling out stragglers and injured workmen, when there's one that is much worse than the other, a boy about his age entirely writhing in pain, his uniform on fire, soot following him in a diverted wake, and Cambric leaps into action.

It is when he meets him... the love of his life, looking at the boy's liquid crystal eyes, a sharp influx of aquamarine through a peal of dirt, dust, and ash, the boy's hair the same color as his eyes, the deftly cut jaw and strong muscles... how lucky Cambric is that he's the medic to nurse this guy back to health. Days after recovery, the kid returns, allowed for a small, extremely meager leave in working as the hole in the factory wall is rebuilt, and the faulty machine that explodes replaced, and he gets a full look at his patient in all of his glorious light, and he is _breathtaking. _It doesn't take too much longer after that when Cambric's lips are on his, tasting of taffy and leather and rubber and textiles, but it is a heavenly kiss swimming in a sea of sugar, Cambric's head swimming in a haze, and the love he has for the medical field shoots straight up... until Reaping Day.

He doesn't dwell on that thought any longer, Cambric shaking his head. Magdalena quips a small smile, as unbeknownst to him, there's an entertaining grin likewise on his face. "Thinking about someone special?" she asks.

Cambric shrugs his shoulders, deciding to sit likewise as her up against the wall. "My boyfriend," he says. "I met him after he was injured in a factory explosion, and I nursed him back to health and-"

"That's cliché as hell," Magdalena laughs, and he smiles likewise.

In his time in the Capitol, Cambric has not felt the warmth that he should, feeling his boyfriend's arms wrapped tight around his chest, or how supple hands dig into his hips, fingers curling into his already curly hair, or the sowing motions with a needle, or the bright looks of hope in any kind of patient's eyes... all of it has been replaced the moment the escort, without wearing any kind of wig in some ridiculously tall high heels calls his name, his boyfriend who is not even of reaping age wanting to break forward out of the crowd, and Cambric's eyes tearing up as he makes his way to the stage, never taking eyes off of his boyfriend while he makes his way to the stage, joining Magdalena there, shaking her hand, smiling for the cameras...

This is the first stroke of happiness, all over an injury.

"Do you mind getting injured more often?" he jokes with her.

The two laugh, and Cambric's heart settles some more.

* * *

**_Satin Spinel: District 1 Female P.O.V (18)_**

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"You wanted to see me?" asks Cyril, the uniform restrictively tight on his body, he standing over with his district partner, Satin Spinel by the knife throwing station. The sword he is holding in his hands swing lackadaisically back and forth, the sharp end occasionally scraping on the tile, causing Satin's lips to twitch into a frown at the harsh disturbance. She nods at his question though, for wasting her efforts and breath on a simple agreement is not worth the time, for she can apply that breathing to elsewhere. She stands in the center of the knife throwing station, this being the fifth time over the last two days she's found herself wandering over to the station. It is what she is the most comfortable with, sure, but there are other weapons calling her name that do not seem as enticing all as the rest.

"I sure did," she smiles at him sweetly, curly blonde hair lightly batting against her shoulder, but all Cyril does is raise his eyebrows, looking unamused. Satin sniffs to herself in disdain; she's always found Cyril to be a rather bore, and definitely not the most interesting person back home at the Academy, certainly not someone that would look good standing next to her on stage, as the 'District 1' team. Her tricks don't work on him, but truthfully they never did, but to everyone else who has yet to know her, she'll undo them like unwrapping a gift, revealing the precious cargo inside. She can hear her mother's voice in her head, applauding her for how good she looks in the outfit, unlike their previous victor who does not look flattering in any of her costumes or outfits. Satin feels definitely exposed in the chariot ride however, as although she is not against using her body in a way to disarm anyone else, being paraded out in the open like that with only some sort of strange strip of covering for her private areas is a bit more than she's willing to bargain.

_Sacrifices must be made. _

Doesn't she know that? Satin has yet to truly experience it the same way her mother has, but a long time ago, the Spinel family had been the richest in the district. The families of the District 1 victors are not the richest, which is a surprise, but she knows it wouldn't be the case given Cyril's father being victor and her poor partner looking the way he does, like a rocky planet covered in craters. That is neither here or there, but it is the truth, until one day, her grandfather looses the Spinel riches in a bet, and as she's heard the tale a thousand times over, the money disappears down the drain, her mother's father kills himself from the shame, and then poor Saffron Spinel - Satin's mother - is left all alone in District 1 after her grandmother succumbs to tuberculosis. Satin is not going to call herself poor, she has too much self-respect for that, and she's _seen _the poor, and her family is not like that. She isn't like that, in the very least, but her mother is a different story.

Sacrifices are something she has learned to live with, especially in terms of being a Career in an Academy where the prices do not come cheap, but nor does therapy, and she's sitting at the crossroads wondering back and forth on which dues need to be paid first if her mother hasn't taken them all for her powdery inhalants. Satin bites down on her tongue, the memory halting immediately, she looking back at Cyril, he having his arms crossed over each other, his sword resting against the station. She narrows her gaze at him, trying to not make her look seem intimidating or analytical, for she does not need him at her throat _just _yet; that can wait, she doesn't even see that event on the horizon right now. She turns away from her partner, standing in the center, picking up one of the knives resting on the table. The blade shines a moonlit silver underneath the golden lights above, the handle a solid black, similar to the color on the training uniform.

"I heard rumors that Aris was thinking of being the Career pack leader," she says, rather short, a hint of distaste hiding in her face.

"Yeah?" Cyril shrugs. "So?"

Satin laughs to herself, which carries just a bit across the room, but Aris is sword fighting with another trainer halfway across the center; he's not going to hear her. Cyril had been practicing on dummies, Anahita not her care or concern since she isn't in the pack, Jules doing some sort of climbing exercise, and Maren taking to task with a spear-like object, but Satin has remained at the knife throwing station. "Aris? You really think you want him leading us?"

"It won't bother me, Satin," but his voice says something entirely different, just by the way he says it, as she sees Cyril shuffle some in his corner.

"You don't have to lie to me, Cyril. If you don't want Aris self-volunteering himself without everyone else's say-so, you tell it to his face."

"Why don't you tell it to his face?" her district partner asks, his voice rising a bit on edge.

She turns back to Cyril, tilting her head to the side some, flattening her lips. It is an expression of feigned surprise, one she has employed before on Cyril and countless others, meant to make the receiving end of the stare feel stupid, but it doesn't take much to make Cyril Barther feel stupid as she's discovered in the ten years of knowing him. "I won't have to say anything to his face, because _I _am going to be the leader of the Career pack." She's only ever seen it be the male from Two or the girl from One, and she knows right now without ever needing to combat the kid that Aris Lindel is one lightbulb short of brightness, and victory is written all over her face. She thinks about the Career pack last year and all of its faults: romances between rival districts, Valencia never holding her ground in her decisions, allowing outsiders into the mix as that never, _ever _spells anything else but disaster - and other stupid decisions that cause the alliance to crumble before the other outlier districts are eliminated. If she is the leader, which she will be, then there is going to be no stupid mistakes made, no decisions costing each other their lives, and the pack will stay together until they are the final remaining tributes in the arena, and if that is now what happens, she's failed.

"You?" Cyril raises an eyebrow, voice hinting in disbelief. "Not to be mean, Satin, but-"

"But what?" she looks back at him, eyes flashing a thunderstorm gray. Perhaps, on second though, maybe she could turn on him right now and no one would blink an eye. It is not like the Peacekeepers could just kill her, as that would be unprecedented in the history of the Games. Cyril pauses in mid-sentence as she looks at him, but there is no way in hell she is letting him off the hook that easy. "No, no, Cyril, finish your sentence. Why won't I be the leader of the pack?" He doesn't say anything, picking up his sword to go back the way he came. She slams the handle of the knife down on the table, shocking the girl from Eleven who is standing next to them at one of the archery stations. "Cyril!"

"How do you know you're the best?" he asks suddenly, through gritted teeth, standing straight up in her face.

Satin tilts her head to the side, eyes averting over to the side, as she cannot maintain eye contact with him lest she look at his hideousness. She simply knows she's the best, as that is what the stars have told her up above. A long time ago, which really means it hadn't been forever ago, she's a nice gal with plenty of friends practicing in the training Academy with her friends, until one day she sees the comparisons in how she holds herself and how they hold themselves, all purely on a classist distinction since _they _have money and poor, dredged out little Satin Spinel picks up the scraps at the table. She wants to scream and shout that she doesn't, as there's her family, and then there's _poverty, _and she dangles above the line, but her voice is drowned out in the wave of petty rich bitchiness. The little nice act washes away like an already crumbling sandcastle into the ocean, and she throws herself into her training.

Of course, the Academy had not been her primary goal in life, but when her mother begins slipping and falling and Satin doesn't recognize the men she brings over into the house anymore, holding copious bags of that white inhalant her mother seems to love more than her own daughter, that this is what it must be. She's heard her mother say a thousand and one times that misses the 'good life', whatever the good life must be, Satin thinking it has to be about money, and there's only one way to truly make money in District 1. It wouldn't be back before when her grandfather had not lost the fortune in a bet, but enough where it could save her, as Satin had no other family she could count on, it being just her and her mother, and whatever occasional suitor would stop by in the meantime.

There... _well, _there's also Obsidian, a rich kid in the Academy, but she grimaces now, feeling a bitterness wash on her tongue as his name crosses her thoughts.

It's not the right time or place to think of him now, as she's saying goodbye to her mother, who is pleading and begging her little sunshine star wins so they can return to the good life, when he walks in, not Obsidian, but a Jasper Onyx, and her life completely collapses as her mouth only forms one word over and over again, something she cannot stop repeating, as it is why she retires so early when coming on the train to head to the Capitol, surprising Lance, Kevia, and most of all Cyril, but she cannot stop mouthing that one word Jasper tells her, a sentence that brought down the very barriers of heaven.

_Father..._

Satin shakes her head again, as Cyril is waiting with bated breath right about now for her to actually do something, but she's never been that sort of girl with the whole idea of all talk, no performance, for Satin Spinel knows how to perform. She picks the knife up that is resting on the counter, where she had last set it down, also picking up the other remaining knife resting on the shelf to her right. Cyril takes a step back so she doesn't club him in the face - perhaps breaking his nose would help his appearance, the red would all mix together, wouldn't it? - and Satin throws the first knife, spiraling her wrist forward to add some spin on the toss. The blade soars down the path, directly into the head of the dummy, slicing the cranium directly in half, through the center, cerulean plastic and manufactured brain matter spilling onto the floor.

The next knife, the other one she hasn't thrown embeds directly into the chest of the dummy with so much force, at bulls-eye, that the dummy tilts over onto the floor with a resounding crash.

She turns back to Cyril, an impressed look on his face.

"That's why, Cyril," Satin says smugly, tapping her fingers on the desk. "That's why I'm the best, and why I am going to lead the Career pack."

If anyone wants to disagree with her, sure, that's fine.

She'll have a knife for them too.

* * *

**_Ponty Carr: District 6 Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

He's normally, and very much so slow to anger, but something about that Amaris O'Hara, his district partner... she makes his blood boil in a way he does not know is possible. He already knew he is not going to be a huge fan of her anyways, from the moment she's reaped and he watches her face turn a thousand shades of vermillion and crimson up and down her body, she shouting at the escort, having to be held in place by another Peacekeeper, and now knowing her occupancy, it is almost a rare taste of justice, given that she is being held back by one of her own, someone she probably likes and trusts... it is too good of an opportunity to pass up, as he sees the look in her eyes, the way she looks at others with a one-two of her head, the same way she looks at him. Ponty knows he's not like the other guys from District 6 that are generally reaped; he definitely is no volunteer. He can't recall ever seeing a male volunteer for District 6. He can't recall _anyone _volunteering in District 6, no one in the district is designed for it.

Well, maybe Amaris and the hatred that burns in her eyes, but it isn't his concern. He knows right away, just from seeing the darkness that builds on her hands that she's one of those white thugs who hide their faces behind masks, all cowards who cannot show who they truly are because they know if they did, there'd be hell to pay. He's stayed out of it, of the troubles that plague Six, although Six is one of the more tame districts, like a Career district, or Twelve - Twelve's notoriety after Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark dies down quickly in just a few years after Romulus Thread is killed in mysterious circumstances, as they're back to their generally sidelined, courteous, demure selves, or at least that is what some of the other Peacekeepers have said before when stopping by his family shop.

Ponty has been approached already by one of the Careers, the D4M if Ponty is right, someone a lot shorter than him, somewhat stocky, asking about joining the alliance since they're down a member - he figures it is the thirteen year old that had been throwing a fit in the melee dummy corner - but he refuses. He may have strength and he may have some skill with a welding hammer, but there's no welding hammer anywhere around the training center for him to even make a difference in people's opinions of him. Since Ponty has muscular arms, it apparently makes him look automatically strong, and not that he'll disagree with the sentiment, but the less other tributes know about him, the better. The Carr family owns a blowing glass company in the artisan sector of District 6, a family owned business for four generations, maybe a bit longer, as Ponty remembers seeing collective pieces made before the Dark Days began, when productions had to cease.

He and his family have provided windows, dials, gauges, and other sorts of glass necessary for the train and car constructions going on in District 3 and 6, those collective works from the districts all colliding together to send the finished product off to the Capitol. Ponty isn't sure, but his family might be the richest in the entire district. There has been a time or twenty someone has stopped by just to see him because his shirt is off, his face covered in ash, brow furrowed in concentration, only for him to heed no mind. Not many Peacekeepers stop by to ever buy anything, usually a one-off Capitol visitor for some sort of important business meeting or evaluation that will select something he himself has personally made, but he's heard the rounds of gossip as there is always someone stationed in front of their shop just in case some scoundrel decides to steal one of their expensive pieces, given one piece sold could probably feed a family of four or five for three months without having to work another day on the train tracks or in the truck ports.

Ponty currently is standing on one of the mats in the training center, off to the side, for he isn't practicing or holding onto a spear or a sword or a trident, but a staff. The wood is firm in his hand, unbending, it won't break no matter how hard he smashes it against a post. A mechanical dummy stands in front of him, armed with its own sort of weapon, some sort of billy club padded in layers and layers of leather. Ponty imagines that the face is Amaris, she trying the ranged weapons, practicing with a sword, and then sparring with a trainer, she breaking the guy's nose, and that has her thrown out yesterday, but yet he finds her prattling about on the floor this morning, having left earlier than he did. Apparently, as she's bragged about it at dinnertime where he's being forced to sit in, the Careers have approached her, the sleazy Aris from Two, but she refuses, which only ticks the kid off even more, but Amaris isn't allowed to touch him.

"_Unlike the way she threw me into a wall, huh?_" He won't lie, he likes it a bit rough, but if Amaris wants to sleep with him, all she has to do is ask. He won't take her up on the offer, for he'd rather have sex with a corpse or Madam President Rodney before that, but it'd flatter him just slightly. Ponty laughs to himself still after kissing her, from when he punches her in the gut and her elbow in his neck. It is something he decides the moment she yells at him, something about cowardice and strength, and he wants to make the distinction very clear that _he _has the strength, and if Amaris wants to believe otherwise, she can, but he'll gladly shatter this staff across her face before that ever happens. People like her disgust him. He has money, he has status; his family wouldn't need to work another day in their lives for a few generations _at least, _but they do, the Carr family puts in the work. He loves what he does, but he's also learned that he isn't better than anyone simply by how much money he has or what his status might be, regardless if it is the upper echelon of Panemian district society, as the label feels restrictive, like someone placing a tight rubber band over his shoulders and expecting him to lift his arms.

He turns the machine on, it whirring to life. The boy from Six turns around, holding the staff in his hands, feeling the way it bobbles along the mat and into the grooves, as if he's feeling the Earth churn underneath his feet. There's the sound of someone's footsteps next to him, just a bit away, but he pays them no mind as they're probably walking towards the fire-starter station, which is directly there. After the District 3 kid takes the hit to the chest and falls off of the obstacle course - Ponty makes it 80% of the way there, as the blows do not knock him off before a good gut punch like what he hits Amaris with has him wheezing for an hour - he and his partner, Ciphra, stay there the rest of the session until lunch. It is just him, Amaris, the Careers, the girls from Seven and Ten, and the boy from Twelve remaining in the center for the second session. Ponty opens his eyes, thrusting the stick forward and up into his hand, as if he's pointing it at an approaching foe.

The machine makes its first roaring noise, the club swinging forward, Ponty turning around and- _CLANG! _A cry breaks in his throat, one of shock and surprise as his staff does not hit the mechanical arm from the machine, and instead of leather like he expects, the wooden staff is braced up against the end piece of one of the spears, and holding onto that end of the spear... Ponty narrows his eyes. "Amaris," he croaks out, and he swallows the bile that threatens to appear. Rather, on second thought, he shouldn't swallow whatever nastiness wishes to come forth when she's around. If she seems as terrible as she comes across, why would it matter what else she'd be covered in? His district partner smirks at him, her hair tied back into a quick bob, eyes cold and unflinching, and Ponty realizes he's just made himself look like a wimp with saying her name like some dormouse.

She pushes the whirring machine back, it shutting off after being moved from its designated spot, Amaris filling the void. She flips the spear upside down, now resting her arms on the blunt end. "Ponty," she regards, but there is no lost love between them. The two of them, standing in their chariots, do not say a word to one another, and she hardly even waves at the crowds while Ponty drowns up the attention, soaking it in, and even though he says good morning to her simply out of courtesy, she has given him the cold shoulder... until now.

"What do you want?" He cannot help the scowl that crosses over his face. His parents would be disappointed with how he's treating a lady, but that is where he raises a hand and wants to tear his hair out, for Amaris O'Hara is _no _lady. "I'm busy."

"Fighting a machine," she says, voice rich and thick with mockery. "All you've done is fight dummies and machines. Why not spar with an actual human being?"

Ponty shrugs his shoulders. "Unlike you, Amaris, I follow the rules," and then he smirks likewise, his skin glowing a darker luster underneath the golden lights. "Besides, no need for me to train with people. If I already kicked your ass, I'm sure I can beat the others." He does not believe that in the slightest, but the way Amaris's eyes light up in a ferocious fury, explosions going off in her corneas, he has her beat; the tiniest little insult is enough to send her in a ricochet flight along the wall. "And all I worry about is kicking your butt."

"Says the kid who couldn't get across the obstacle course today," she gets a bit closer to him, Ponty finding this absolutely amusing, as this must be such a repeat of last time that it nearly gives him deja vu, because she is so much smaller than him and yet his enough liquid arrogance seeping out of her body that she could fill up a Capitol bathtub. "I finished it. I was also approached by the Careers," Amaris lets that bit hang, Ponty rolling his eyes, as if that is supposed to mean something. There have been plenty, _plenty _of tributes in the history of the Games approached to join the Careers. However, if that is the game she wants to play...

"So was I," Ponty brandishes the staff, holding it a bit tighter in his hand. "The guy from Four asked me."

"The girl from One asked me."

"You wouldn't fit anyways," Ponty smirks to himself, Amaris raising an eyebrow. He's sure they're about to throttle each other in the face any second now. "You're too ugly for them."

Amaris throws the spear on the ground, eyes widening, turning to the color of the darkest night, but Ponty is not about to have another repeat of the train ride, and he is not going to kiss her again, there's no damned way in all of the nine hells. Ponty strikes Amaris across the face with his staff the moment she lunges for him, he backing up the moment he lashes out, for it has Amaris reeling out of shock. When she rights herself, no one seems to have noticed, but Ponty walks forward to her, as this is his domain and she is not about to overstep it and try to take over. He presses the staff into her hand, a welt appearing on her right cheek, swollen and speckled, a tinge of pink on her pale skin.

"I swear to God, I'll-" Amaris starts, but he does not let her finish that sentence.

He steps closer to her, almost as if they would be kissing, Ponty pressing a hand on her shoulder. "I've said it once, O'Hara, and I'll say it again," he's hissing now, through clenched teeth, a vein starting to pop in his neck. "You try to hit me one more time? It'll be the last time you raise your hand," and, before he pushes her off of him as his skin is starting to crawl, "I'm not someone to fuck with, Amaris. I'll kill you,"

Ponty does not care to see what her reaction would be, surely something with a lot of lip sputtering and cries of indignation, but he is no longer her concern, and she should've have been his concern in the first place. He doesn't like her, and he never will.

* * *

**Alright, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #16: Pushed to the Limits. We've met every single tribute now, woohoo! I would love ya'll, if you review and if you do your typical charts and stuff, to have them updated for I like to keep track of them myself. With us meeting Audhild Olthono of District 9, Cambric Vogel of District 8, Satin Spinel of District 1, and Ponty Carr of District 6, that's all 24 tributes, our full cast shown. As I did with Slaughter, this is the point where I show everyone the break down by ages,**

**18: 8 ~ (Satin Spinel, D1F), (Cyril Barther, D1M), (Ciphra Longsdale, D3F), (Amaris O'Hara, D6F), (Magdalena Bertha, D8F), (Cambric Vogel, D8M), (Bloom Estrada, D12F), (Mirek Bosco, D12M)**

**17: 8 ~ (Aris Lindel, D2M), (Jules Harper, D4M), (Seth Cables, D5M), (Ponty Carr, D6M), (Sage Dagoba, D7F), (Rodric Oxford, D10M), (Zola Taonga, D11F), (Vanya Vasiliev, D11M)**

**16: 5 ~ (Maren Johnson, D2F), (Tach Andon, D3M), (Sophiana Delarosa, D5F), (Jason Lacey, D9M), (Vivian Whiplash, D10F)**

**15: 0**

**14: 0**

**13: 2 ~ (Anahita Cascade, D4F), (Roanoke Arkus, D7M)**

**12: 1 ~ (Audhild Olthono, D9F)**

**Look at the skew, ladies and gentlemen, haha, 16 of the cast are seventeen or eighteen years-old, and we've got three young ones. Next chapter, #17: Locked Out of Paradise, is going to be our Private Sessions. This will be shown from a Capitol character POV as I did in Slaughter, and likewise for Slaughter, I show every tribute's session as otherwise I wouldn't find a way to be fair - no, not every tribute gets an interview, that would be too much, it's why I didn't ask it on the submission form - so it will probably take me a bit longer to get through the bulk of the chapter than usual, as my last Private Sessions chapter was 10k, and I will most likely reach that same number if not higher. **

**Thank you all so much for reading. I hope you review and let me know about this last batch of tributes. I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	17. Locked From Paradise (Private Sessions)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Bombs and Bullets - never gonna get over that amazing artwork Thorne made, hot damn - Chapter #17: Locked Out of Paradise. Last chapter we were introduced to the final four tributes I had yet to fully cover: Audhild Olthono of District 9, Cambric Vogel of District 8, Satin Spinel of District 1, and Ponty Carr of District 6. This chapter, my dear readers, is the Private Sessions. As I did in Sheep Led to Slaughter, this chapter will feature all twenty-four tributes and their session, given a paragraph or more - nothing too obscenely large, but some are shorter than others, how it goes - viewed from an outside source of point of view, a Capitol character, last time it being Bonnie. I am very excited to get to show off everyone in a habitat of strength, and I can't wait to roll out the scores next chapter. Since this chapter is unbelievably long - it wouldn't feel right not giving everyone the same amount of attention - that if there is a tribute you wish to read about and not the others given the word count, you can easily find them, as they're in _ALPHABETICAL order_ by last name, not district order traditionally. Please enjoy Chapter #17: Locked Out of Paradise.**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, do not weep and gnash your teeth when you are locked out of the doors of Paradise everlasting... perfection does not suit you._

**_Valencia Shale: Victor of the 100th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

This is not how she's been expecting to spend her day, or at least the early part of her afternoon. Valencia does not sleep in the bed offered to her by Bonnie in the presidential mansion last night, she choosing to go back to her glimmering silver palisade off in the back of Sector A, snuggling up into sheets that she's missed for four days straight. The moment the victor slinks back underneath the covers, it is as if she is back in the arena, lying on her side staring into the fire, Persephone's arms wrapping around her front, hugging her tight, a gentle kiss placed against the back of her head, and a single promise, _'I'll never let you go, my darling, never',_ and although Valencia is sure the now dead Career from District 2 upheld her promise, she is unable in determining whether or not she has let hers go, if the promise has been broken.

The sleep is gentle and quiet, although her heart roars in her chest after arriving on Criston's floor in the Training Center. Luckily, the tributes are out, and she is able to express her convictions clearly, but as she rolls over them in her head, everything muddles together, like paint with way too much water smearing the canvas until is incapable of being used. Criston's palms are warm and sweaty, thumbs pressing into her wrists, highlighting over her veins she sees faintly underneath the veil of pale flesh, and that she'll be approached, as with what the District 6 victor calls it, 'assignments' later at a time when she's needed, whisking her back out of the elevator, for another ping goes off at the time, the District 6 tributes returning. Another slot opens up, Valencia disappearing behind the slate cube to take her back down to the ground floor, but she knows she's been seen by the female tribute, eyes locked on squarely, a chilled look, cold, battle-hardened, and above all else, vile.

Everything beyond that moment is a blur, Valencia not sure who she went and saw or what she did, let alone remembering if she's had lunch or not, finding herself simply milling around a few of the fountains, trailing her hands into the water, sloshing up the rather expensive blouse she is wearing, until dragging her feet back to her home. She's a grown woman - no she isn't, she has just turned of age - and a victor of the Hunger Games; the president does not need to know where she is, nor it is any of the woman's damn business. In bed, Valencia keeps on rubbing over the spot where she had been slapped, the shockwaves pulsating from the epicenter, aftershocks that spiral through her cheek, sharp stabs of pain that flare up in the gut. It is more than the slap, it is much more than that, but the victor wants to see Madam Rodney's hair, that flaxen gorgeous Rapunzel hair go up in smoke, cinders to the wind, with Bonnie's dying scream breaking on the airwaves. It is the other image she keeps in her head, a decaying Bonnie in some sort of ivory colored clothing, until the knock on her door hours and hours later.

It is how she finds herself now, in the Training Center ground floor, sitting up high where the Gamemakers would sit, Head Gamemaker Constantine beside her, the older woman's gray hair in a frizzed bun, two strands poking out on either side and pointing downwards, gliding against the woman's cheek. When Valencia opens the door to her tiny sunshine shack, she does not expect Constantine to be the person standing outside, waiting for her to get the morning paper - "_What's a morning paper?" Valencia asks, apparently to the Head Gamemaker's amusement by the way the dodderer giggles to herself - _and it is no happenstance accident as to why the second most powerful person in Panem is seeking her out. The newest orders from Bonnie, to sit with Head Gamemaker Constantine Fallorne and watch the private sessions of the tributes.

Valencia stirs uncomfortably in her chair. It is just her and Constantine in one vast room on their platform. The other trainers stand by at their stations, silent and unmoving, stone statues without a hint at humanity in them, the other Gamemakers given the day off, and there isn't an Avox in sight, which Valencia finds odd. A cool chill flows through her body, she shaking some, clenching onto the armrests on her chair, a padded one of sorts with a velvet back that feels quite lovely. She does not know where to place her eyes, as the last time she had even stepped foot on this level had been for her own session, all those days and days ago, with spears, leaves, dummies, a noose, and something other than that results in an _11 _ensuring that Valencia Shale becomes the head of the Careers.

"_And look what good that did me..." _she thinks to herself, rather sardonically.

Constantine looks over, noticing that the girl is giving the good ole' grip of death onto the chairs. "Valencia? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she lies through her teeth, painting the sweetest smile she could, but it looks as if the paint had been muddled with too much water, spoiling the canvas.

The Head Gamemaker pulls out a clipboard from a side table, and a pen out of her pocket, clicking on the end piece, the clicking a sharp _ping _to Valencia's stomach, as if the end piece of the pen had been stabbed into her gut. Constantine scribbles a word or two on the top that she cannot see from her spot, and then looks up at the victor. "So, like I said, Bonnie wants you to sit in with me, alone, like she had done last year and watch the Private Sessions made by the tributes," her eyes sparkle. 'It's been a direct year, hasn't it?"

"Yes ma'am," Valencia says, but she swallows heavily after Constantine's sparkle turns into a lightning bolt crash.

"What was your session?" Constantine hitches at her skirt, and a razor edge adds itself to her voice, gaze slightly lowering, a hint of melancholy hiding behind a plaster of curiosity depicted as innocence. Valencia has seen enough Capitolites to know how their pupils betray them, the way the lip will twitch, or a finger will bend into a bit of a talon. "I wasn't in the room last time, you know," Valencia is sure she'd never forget seeing Constantine had she been in there last time. The victor lifts her head, eyes narrowing in. She much prefers Lewlyn to this grandmother, although she has only known her for five days. "And Valencia, don't call me ma'am. We're friends, Constantine is fine." _We are not friends. We are not a first name basis either. You and I are not so familiar._

The memory is a transfixed period in time, sitting in a crystal chandelier that is incapable of being shattered. Valencia's throat quivers under the pressure, she shutting her eyes for a second, opening them with a peal of thunder. All of it, that day, just a year ago when the most famous attribute she is given is being the female from District 1 for a Quarter Quell... that spot hadn't been something well contested in earlier Quells. For the 75th, the 3rd, Cashmere is killed halfway through, not exactly the best, and then for the 50th year, the girl makes it all the way to the final two... Valencia's legacy sits on the brink of a knife. All of it, her entire victory, it may perhaps rest entirely in that eleven she scores. She hitches her skirt down some, throat seizing up as if she's swallowed a tracker jacker hive.

"I made some sort of trap with leaves and spears, a noose, and then used my sword to destroy the dummy," she says, as flatly as possible, seeing it clear as day splashing back in her eyes. Valencia's arms erupt in goosebumps, she rubbing her flesh till the heat starts to hurt, as if she is scraping guts off of a tree branch with a knife.

Constantine nods her head, humming lowly in her throat. "It must've been something to see, huh?"

"I suppose so," Valencia hitches at the end piece of her outfit. "It got me an eleven after all, solidifying me as the leader of the Careers..." her eyes flash a sharp sterling silver. If she does not get the highest score out of the Careers, she does not become the leader of them. Being the leader of the Careers has her targeted by Blake, where she is saved by Marcus. Because Marcus gets a kill he proves to himself he can do what he needs to do to win, thus the deaths of Hero and Maisey. Carrion's injury, then not being able to fight a trash can monster to the death. Annabellina's sacrifice, Milor's slow descent into madness as Carrion withers away... Valencia bites down on her tongue to stop the tears from stemming free. "How's today going to go?"

The Head Gamemaker pulls over a platter of strawberries sitting on a cart having been put there by an Avox, biting down into one, vermillion juices streaking down her chin. "If every tribute takes the full time of their allotted four minutes, should be over just after an hour and a half," and then Constantine locks eyes with Valencia. "We'll have a few buffer minutes like always, as there is a new protocol step Bonnie is wishing to initiate, but it shouldn't be too long," the woman runs a hand down her own skirt, pulling at it until it seems like it'll tear. "Any questions?"

"The order? Last year it was-"

"Alphabetical, a change Lewlyn and our sweet late Calhoun decided upon," Constantine finishes the thought. "I liked it, actually, stepping out of the order," Valencia witnesses the Head Gamemaker shudder visibly, as if being overcome with some sickly chill, jaw locking. "I hate order, it is too boring. Chaos, however..." a slight hint of pleasure rises through the veil, Valencia absentmindedly sitting back some in her chair. _Chaos? _Wouldn't going in alphabetical order still be an order...? She doesn't want to get into the logistics, especially with her. "Instead of the typical district order, where the District 12 female would be dead last, alphabetical by last name," and at Valencia's further nodding, Constantine licks her fingers, flipping through a page of notes. "Tach Andon from District 3 would start, and Vivian Whiplash of District 10 would be the last."

"Sounds fine enough," Valencia lies through her teeth, but she knows every vein on her body is simply popping out as if it has no place to return to, to hide.

"Would you like any say in the session?" Constantine asks. "Lewlyn offered Bonnie this, and Bonnie partook in it some. You'd be allowed to dismiss them early if you think you've seen enough, and if need be, you can help me decide the scores."

The amount of pressure that would be settles onto Valencia's shoulders like a cinderblock, all of the air in her lungs being whooshed out, she leaning forward at the possible idea of holding any of these tributes' fates in her hand by a measly score. Her score led to her survival, but that meant twenty-three other doomed souls beyond that... does she have the capabilities to willingly do it again? She shakes her head in dissent. "No, no, I am just here to watch. This is your domain, Constantine."

"Then let us begin," the Head Gamemaker agrees, and setting her clipboard aside to rest on her leg, she claps her hands twice in quick succession. Valencia's blood turns to ice, and the doors swing open, some female automated voice announcing the first tribute.

...

...

...

_Tach Andon_

Valencia hates to be mean, but the moment she sees the first tribute step through the double doors, her heart sinks. He's no fighter, he's no warrior, no Career or outer district contender in the slightest. Tach Andon's eyes are wide, she able to see it from here, Constantine giving the kid some sort of command, but she's drowned out all the noise in the room, only listening and paying attention to the thaw of the air conditioner that has turned her skin into brittle porcelain. Tach wanders over immediately to the obstacle course, Valencia remembering that back in her heyday as vivid as can be, with all of the trainers in leather, a brutal club to the back, and a nosebleed from tripping on one ledge. Tach turns to them, giving a slight bow - Valencia is confused, he seems nervous but is _bowing _to them? - and then, clear as day, shouts some sort of warrior cry at the top of his lungs.

Constantine bursts into hysterics, guffawing like a mad woman. "I'm gonna do the obstacle course and probably fail miserably!" the kid shouts out loud, and then he books it straight down the alleyway, roaring as he goes, and the Head Gamemaker continues to laugh louder. The kid is skinny and wiry, but he apparently must look intimidating as he flat out barrels into the first trainer, knocking the man off of the perch. Constantine is supposed to be calling off the session immediately as the trainer isn't a sparrer, but she's wiping at her eyes laughing to even notice some sort of foul. "Yeah, that's right!" Tach shouts at the trainer. "I kicked your ass, how does it feel?" and then he continues onwards. Valencia is impressed at the way he does seem to keep his head above water decently enough, ducking under two trainers, vaulting onto a higher perch than she had been able to reach during her own joint exercise, and then he makes a next goofy step, his feet falling out from underneath him.

"Oh shit!" Tach shouts out, but that only seems to make Constantine giggle louder, until Tach lands on the floor, getting nearly halfway through the course, in one piece, but nothing to probably warrant a high score. The trainer he had hit gives him a glare, a ripple of shock gliding through Valencia. No one here in the Capitol, maybe besides this crazy woman sitting next to her seems to have any fun. Tach does not wait to be dismissed, some sort of dawning emotion crossing his face, and he scampers out.

_Roanoke Arkus_

It is an odd pause that Valencia does not expect, the moment Tach leaves, she expecting this Roanoke kid to step in immediately, but he doesn't. There's a good belabored pause, probably about thirty seconds or so, and in that time Constantine writing notes that she cannot see during intermittent laughter. Then, after what feels like an eternity of anticipation sticking to her skin, the next kid comes in. Although the two truly look nothing alike, Valencia's mind straight away thinks _Linden Hazel _as the boy wanders in, dark ashy skin, long black hair, and a sweet smile, before wandering over to one of the back stations.

Roanoke collects some twigs, and in what feels like record time, a fire goes erupting out of the wood, something certainly not natural as no beginning fire should cause an explosion that Valencia can feel underneath her seat. The kid from Seven then turns towards a tent, assembling it in forty seconds, as Valencia counts in her head, also keeping an eye on the timer sitting in the corner, its digitalized numbers in a blocky font, a shining emerald out from the wall, counting down. The shelter looks great, with the vivacious fire billowing next to it, but she knows that shelter making is a good skill, the concept of building a fire in an arena... it is an immediate way to get killed. The light, the smoke... Valencia knows she and her alliance made one, but that had been the alcohol speaking to them.

Constantine dismisses Roanoke after staring into the blaze for a few moments, transfixed by the flames, but she's not sure that'll improve her score at all.

_Cyril Barther_

A Career already. Valencia sits up straight as she sees Cyril enter the center. She's seen him before, she actually being in his year, being the same age as him. She's always found him handsome, hiding in his father's shadow, with his immense good looks that are immediately downplayed by the hideous spider excrement sitting on his face. Valencia hates to be harsh, but she's physically trained with the kid before, sparring and narrowly getting beat. Constantine seems to be perked up as well, actually setting her pen aside, as she had been, in between the guffawing, physically been writing notes all throughout Tach and Roanoke's session.

Cyril makes his way over to the sword rack, picking out a medium sized blade about the length of his forearm, and with his back turned, Valencia sees his muscles rippling through the training outfit. She is surprised to know he is single, as he honestly has every other quality girls back home in One would be drooling over. Unless he isn't into girls, but she shouldn't focus on that idea right now. He turns over to a dummy, and as if he hadn't even moved, the dummy is beheaded, the plastic appendage clattering onto the tiled floor, a ghastly echo. She saw Gaia Whisp's head roll, bile rising in her throat. Cyril then destroys the arms of off a different dummy, before kicking it to the floor. He rushes through an amount, about three or fire, slicing off different parts of the dummy, but it always ends the same, with a beheading.

There isn't much form to it, despite the strikes being clean and swift, Valencia finds that they're not entirely practiced, not defined enough, and he's worked up a sweat with it, Cyril breathing heavily by the time he's finished, shirt soaked to a dark gray. He leaves the sword on the floor after Constantine dismisses him.

_Magdalena Bertha_

It is mean to say, but Valencia's crossed that point she's pretty sure: the girl looks much more competent at winning than Marina Penweather. Magdalena wanders over to the knife throwing session, throwing two blades in a rather quick succession, one slicing through an arm clean, the other getting stuck around the hip. Valencia looks at her, as the girl from Eight then decides to hobble closer over towards them, she frowning. Why is the girl approaching them? She needs to be focused on the situation. Although Magdalena hides it fairly well, Valencia's eyes spot it immediately as a debilitating weakness. She's got a limp.

"Was that good enough to get me an eight or higher?" Magdalena asks, directly looking at Constantine. Valencia stirs, slightly perturbed that the girl won't even acknowledge her existence, as if she isn't even there.

Constantine had been scribbling something down, but the question causes her to halt. "Excuse me, young lady?" she asks, the voice sweet, but as razor sharp as a blade.

"Will I get an eight or higher with that?"

The Head Gamemaker peers over at the dummy. "It is better than most from your district, but not a Career score, young lady."

"I think it deserves to be an eight or higher."

"You cannot tell me how to do my job," and Constantine sits forward some, Valencia terrified out of her mind that the older woman will throttle Magdalena, as if she'd leap over the railing like some caped crusader. "Unless you have something else to show me, besides mediocre knife skills and trying to manipulate me into giving you a good score you don't deserve, I suggest you leave, Miss Bertha."

Apparently so, Constantine's threat is enough, and Magdalena has nothing to show her.

_Mirek Bosco_

The comparisons have to stop, but Valencia is entirely incapable of helping herself, the moment Mirek walks in she sees an already more competent version of Colt. From his height and bulking muscles that ripple underneath the training uniform, had she been back in Hunger Games Career mode, she'd go to him straight away, begging for him to join the Careers. "_As if Hero and Victoria had done anything good, after all,_" she thinks to herself bitterly, biting down on her tongue. Mirek makes his way over to the pickaxes, something she knows that the miners in Twelve have to use to work, so he must have some sort of practice. Although it must be a bit heavier than what Mirek expects to use by a sudden strained expression on his face, he swings it above his head with enough expertise to bury it into the chest of a dummy.

When he wrenches the pickaxe out, he asks Constantine - once again, Valencia is ignored as if she doesn't even exist - a strange request, one that has both she and the Head Gamemaker looking at one another confusedly. However, Constantine grants it, and then, to Valencia's horror, a rabbit of decent size is placed on a pedestal in front of Mirek, he clenching onto the hilt of the pickaxe so hard that the veins in his arm begins to bulk. She has to look away when Mirek swings at the animal, but Constantine does not tear her eyes away. There's a horrific guttural noise that comes from the rabbit, clearly slaughtered, and when Valencia looks back at the carnage, her mouth dries up.

Mirek is covered in the animal's blood, it having splattered across his chest, getting in his curls, and it looks like there is a puddle on his right cheek, but there is no light in his eyes, not even a darkness like she expects. It is something solid, as if there isn't any sort of feeling Mirek _could _feel. No remorse or shock at killing an animal, but she supposes, if he can kill a harmless and innocent pet, he'll be able to kill a harmless and innocent tribute in his way for survival. He does not wait for Constantine to dismiss him.

_Seth Cables_

Valencia's skin begins to crawl when she sees the next tribute walk in, unbelievably more competent than Edwin had been, but Edwin hadn't been some sort of loathsome creature, but a scientist. She sees no sort of intelligence bursting from Seth's demeanor, not after he hightails it to the knife rack. Constantine has to tell the kid to hurry the process up, as Seth stands there in front of the collected assortment of weapons, running his hands along the handles, and a shiver runs through Valencia. She had heard stories from the footage of Caiden, though she never got to physically see his evilness, but there is something in front of her that she doesn't like. Constantine clears her throat, jostling Seth out of his stupor, he giving a crooked smile to both ladies sitting on the veranda.

He wanders over to a collection of dummies, now placed in a ribald circle, and some trainer blows a whistle, Valencia watching with wide eyes as Seth shreds the dummies into a rainfall of plastic. A wave of blue covers his section of mats as Seth finishes wrenching the knife out of the neck of the last remaining prop, and although a bit of objectified horror sits in her throat, she has to admit, she's impressed. There is no way this Seth Cables kid learned _here _how to do that, but he must've known, from the precise way one stab entirely obliterates an artery in the neck, or the perfect stab to the kidneys that would disable even the burliest man.

Constantine has to tell Seth that before he leaves that he needs to place the knife back, he trying to walk out of the training center _without _it. Seth looks down at the weapon, he frowning, and then walking as slow as he can back to place it on the rack. Valencia locks eyes with him momentarily, another shudder going through her. She is not sure what causes her to feel such repulsion, but she's never met someone around her age she's never appreciated, liked, or tolerated. Him?

Valencia would rather kill Peri over and over again for a thousand years than sit in the same room as Seth.

_Ponty Carr_

The Carr name is something familiar to her, and as Valencia finds out while her glass house is being constructed, all of the windows... so her entire house, has been designed in District 6 by the Carr family, from where he hails from. He's a rather attractive man, a year younger than her, but she has her eyes glued onto him the moment he steps into the center. Ponty wanders over to the black sheep rack of weapons, her mouth going dry immediately the moment Ponty's hands encircle around the end of a war hammer. Valencia grips the edges of her chair, a wave of nausea about to roll over her. A glimpse of gorgeous, ethereal Persephone Castor flashes behind her eyes just briefly, she squeezing her eyes shut. When she opens them, Ponty has smashed the sharp end of the hammer into a dummy's head, breaking it open like a watermelon, industrial brain matter splattering over the floor.

He drops the war hammer, perhaps getting bored with it, and then picks up a weapon that has Constantine muttering to herself. A blowdart gun? Ponty stands with his feet together firmly on a place mat, aiming somewhere off into the rigging. A sandbag holding one of the stage lights, which illuminates the entrance. Ponty loads a dart into the bamboo tube, and then exhales, firing a dart. It slashes through the rope holding the sandbag up, it coming undone, the rope flittering away, and the light crashing down onto the floor. Valencia goes to open her mouth, perhaps to speak about not causing property damage, but Ponty continues firing, knocking out a bulb a good fifty feet up, at least half a football field away from him, shattering it.

Ponty finishes his session then, Valencia turning to Constantine with a raised eyebrow. "How did he have the lung power for that?"

"The Carr family is a glass making, glass blowing artisan family," Constantine explains. "Ponty is supposed to carry on the legacy," and then her lips curl into a smile. "Supposed to."

_Anahita Cascade_

Valencia hasn't heard the news around the town explicitly, but there's been rumors that Anahita Cascade has been kicked out of the Careers, and maybe rightfully so. The new victor watches as the girl - goodness, she is small - stalk over to the black sheep rack of weapons once more, seizing one of the more fancy blades: a kunai. Valencia has never dabbled with one of the fancier swords, preferring the classic type given the weight, but Anahita swings it around like it is a mere stick in her hands. She must've started young, she surmises, just from the adept way that Anahita then skewers through a set of dummies like carving through cake. Anahita slashes this way and that, obliterating another dummy, before leaping on it, tearing away at the plastic.

Despite the nearly looking animalistic rage that comes from Anahita, Valencia sees an odd hesitancy to her decisions, whether it be a quick glisten of her eyes, or the quivering of her lower lip, that there is an impulsiveness hidden behind the action, her mind at war with itself. Constantine is sitting upright, paying full attention to her. Valencia wants to say something, the hypocrisy of the Head Gamemaker only devoting her full attention to Career or Career-esque tributes, as Valencia can see right away why Anahita is not admitted into the alliance; she wouldn't allow her in either, for being too young, and youthfulness is a liability at an age where one might not be able to fully process exactly what it is they are doing, especially with human lives on the line.

Anahita finishes scrapping up dummies, some of the plastic guts hanging off of her arms, and with a sneer, she wipes them off, and before Constantine can dismiss her, she's scampering off. If the Careers do not allow her in the alliance, depending on what her score is, and underestimate her... it may be the doom of them all.

_Sage Dagoba_

If one thing is for certain, Sage Dagoba is not going to need a strength serum from any president to make her even stronger than she already is. Valencia believes that Sage must be one working in the fields already, chopping down trees or acting as some sort of breadwinner. A wicked gleam dances behind the girl's eyes as she beheads a dummy, then throwing one axe, the blade shining a moonlit silver while she throws. However, as Sage then turns to grab another axe, the girl pauses. Valencia frowns, sitting up somewhat, she finding herself also falling back into the throes of relaxation, her back already becoming sore. She has no idea why Sage is pausing, given the throw she just did had been pretty accurate - there is too much forward thrust of the elbow, not perfect, not a Career stance in the slightest - and she sees the girl mouthing something to herself, and then loud enough to hear, an expletive and 'them'. Valencia is sure she can guess what the girl from Seven just uttered.

A cry rips free from the victor's lips as Sage then turns, grabbing the second axe, and _chucks _it directly at the two of them. Valencia ducks, throwing herself out of her chair, but Constantine simply gets to her feet, voice booming. There's a godawful crashing noise, steel scrapping against something more advanced and technological, Valencia opening her eyes and peeking out over the edge. The axe blade lays in a smoldered ruin at the bottom of the slope, Sage standing with wide eyes, and then a burning anger focusing in her eyes instead, glaring Constantine down, who matches step for step.

"Please remove Miss Dagoba from the Center," Constantine orders, voice thunderous. A few Peacekeepers grab Sage by the arms, not too roughly, but it seems that the girl doesn't even put up a fight, keeping her glare directly focused on Constantine. There's a belabored pause after Sage is removed, only two and a half minutes into her session, Valencia hearing the roar of her heartbeat more than the thaw of the air conditioner now.

"Will-" she asks after some more time passes, throat incredibly dry, "Will she be punished?"

"Define what you mean by 'punished'?" Constantine says, and then she looks at the victor, those eyes of hers loosing all of their cheerfulness.

Valencia swallows a rock into the pit of her stomach. "Killed?"

The Head Gamemaker shakes her head. "No, we won't kill her. Bonnie explicitly said she wanted the tributes to receive no harm, so no harm will come to them," Constantine sits back in her chair, picking up her clipboard and pen, which had fallen into her quick standing up. "If Katniss Everdeen managed to fire an arrow at Seneca Crane and get an eleven, and she not being punished by Coriolanus Snow, then Sage Dagoba will not be killed by me or Madam Rodney for throwing an axe at you and I, especially with a forcefield between us," she sighs heavily, clicking her pen, and then shouting with the reverb of a snare drum, "NEXT TRIBUTE!"

_Sophiana Delarosa_

The shock has yet to wear off on Valencia, she returning to her seat, shaking, trembling. No one has thrown a weapon at her in ages, it being Peri and her boomerang axe as the last time any sort of blade has been sent in her direction. She squeezes her eyes shut, but Constantine seems to be entirely engaged, speaking to the girl from Five, Valencia unable to even concentrate, the sounds of the arena booming over her, Peri's axe slicing the air, the igniting of the flames, and Valencia's own cries and gasps of terror as she ran for her life.

When she opens her eyes, Sophiana is on the rock climbing wall, trying to get up as high as she can, but she has not made it very far. The girl looks extremely frail - not sickly, however - and there is a rugged determination in her movements, but it doesn't seem to be enough as Sophiana only perhaps gets it a few feet up, maybe about thirty or forty percent of the way there before she lets go by missing a rock, and crashing hard onto the floor. Constantine doesn't say anything, doesn't even jostle in her seat, but Valencia wants to leap to her feet, to rush over and pick the poor girl up in her arms, as the fall looks like it hurt more than it should have.

Although Sophiana does not make a noise as she lays there in a circled heap on the ground, she physically does not move for the remainder of her session, needing a Peacekeeper to nudge her up and to her feet, being helped out by them, eyes glistening with the fresh crystal creation of tears, but Valencia gives the girl credit. Sophiana Delarosa does not cry, the girl stays stalwart somewhat in the mask of her failure.

_Bloom Estrada_

Another rumor, as Valencia is concerned, looking at the new tribute, Bloom Estrada, she being some sort of freedom fighter or champion of the people back in Twelve. Rennie is highly interested in her for some reason, a crash course lesson given by Criston when she arrives on his floor. She raises an eyebrow too, seeing the girl move into action, as Bloom gets straight away to moving over to the mechanical traps, something she did not know even existed before. The girl starts picking up some metallic objects, digging through the mess, before finding exactly what she needs, and rips it out, Valencia raising an eyebrow. A bear trap is what sits in Bloom's hands, and then Bloom immediately launches it at a dummy, part of the metal snagging onto the plastic flesh.

Bloom squeezes some sort of trigger and the bear trap immediately closes around the dummy's stomach, she wrenching it back with some immense sort of strength - Valencia isn't actually sure how the semantics of a bear trap work, or even if they're that heavy - and some of the dummy guts come flying with it. Bloom throws the trap down, and then she makes her way over to the trainer ring, being the very first to spar with anyone. Constantine unclicks her pen, setting it aside, scooting up some, and there is another whistle. It is a flurry of fists and blows, the girl throwing some sort of jab a few times that leaves her exposed, but Valencia can tell right away that this is not Bloom Estrada's first foray into the melee scene.

She does not win the fight, however, getting suckered to the upper right side of the body, slightly just below her heart and at the ribcage. The trainer does not strike her unbelievably hard in the slightest, but it is not a blow to take lightly. Bloom goes down to one knee, out of breath, and taps out. _Good, _Valencia nods at the action, _she can see a losing fight. _Constantine dismisses her, but Valencia sees for the first time, as Bloom makes her way out, a smile cross the woman's face. It isn't one like her laughing at Tach's humorous commentary on a rather stressful situation, but a smile full of opportunity.

_Jules Harper_

The rumors are full and abounding with this group of tributes, as Valencia watches the next Career come stepping in through the doors. Valencia has heard, though she won't betray who said it, that Jules Harper is not male, despite being reaped as the male tribute from Four, but a _girl. _It is a forbidden rule, as opposite sexes and genders cannot volunteer for a reaped friend, that being a rule put there since the dawn of time, but somehow as she looks at Jules standing down there, they've broken through the ranks. However, as far as Valencia is concerned, Jules Harper is a man, not a woman, and he's more than welcome to be in that spot as long as he lives to tell the tale. Jules is smaller, a lot stockier, but Valencia knows why that is, but it doesn't even seem to cross Constantine's mind.

Jules makes his way over to the sword station, picking out two similarly sized blades. He calls over two trainers, and then, without even sudden warning, the trainers rush him. Valencia watches as Jules parries both strikes heading his way, both arms lashing out and swords clanging with clubs - the blades are dull, to prevent injury, but Valencia's mouth dries up all the same - Jules kicking one trainer away onto their back. He dashes in a quick two swipe at the next trainer, they having to duck and scramble away from his onslaught. The trainer he had kicked recovers to their feet, swinging for Jules's exposed side, but he throws his sword in the air, catching it and then parrying the blow with both swords together. Valencia's eyes widen, as he's a much better fighter than she could ever be, but there's something in Jules's eyes that cause her skin to burn with an ire... a greediness or a cockiness that she has seen a thousand times over bring down potential candidates over and over again. Should he be incapable of reining that in, it'll destroy him.

The fight ends with Jules standing triumphantly over both trainers who have been downed with an underfoot sweep, swords placed gently underneath their necks, the trainers tapping out. Constantine gets to her feet, clapping excitedly, but Valencia doesn't want to clap. She knows that if Constantine has her way, he'll get a twelve. Jules is dismissed, and she does not hold her opinion back the moment he vanishes.

"Don't give him a twelve," she says.

Constantine blinks in surprise, frowning. "Why not, Valencia? He earned it."

"Speaking from experience, if you give a Career a twelve, they stop wanting more, they stop desiring improvement," Valencia says. It is something she briefly, beyond briefly considers for a moment after earning her eleven... since she didn't earn a twelve, that she isn't perfect and there is something for her to improve on. "If a Career believes they're perfect, they believe they're unstoppable, and no one is unstoppable or perfect."

It seems as if the Head Gamemaker wishes to argue with her, but they're not on a first name basis. Valencia will never admit it, but it might, just _might _also be jealousy poking through the clouds too.

_Maren Johnson_

Once again, another Career follows suit, going next. Valencia hopes that the girl isn't the most amazing fighter in the world, as she feels unbelievably terrible for speaking her mind to Constantine just moments earlier, as if she's betrayed her own kind of people. Maren looks around at all the weapons at her disposal - does a Career always go for the weapons? Do they never try to use any other skill? - eyes seizing up at the ranged collection: spears, axes, bow and arrow, and the girl walks over to them. Valencia watches her the entire way, lifting her head. She sees a bit of Persephone in Maren, although neither girl look anything alike, but she supposes the comparison must be made. Pretty in her own right, but Valencia believes she'll never love again.

Maren's hands encircle around the hilt of an axe, the victor clenching the arms of the chair once more, Constantine clicking her pen again, eyes focused entirely on the Career down below. The girl from Two takes her stance, and then chucks the axe without much preamble down at the dummy. It collides straight into the plastic foe, cutting it in half, and Valencia jumps in her seat in shock. It is the same exact cut where Peri's own weapon goes the moment she swings it down at the poor girl from Seven, getting it stuck near the center of her chest. Valencia lets out a gasp, lurching forward, her breakfast threatening to reappear over her shoes. Constantine looks over at Valencia, worry spreading across her face, she raising her hand.

"Sweetheart, you can go," Constantine announces. Maren whirls around, eyes widening, mouth ready to rapid fire protest, but she's not budging. "It was a wonderful throw and I'll score you adequately, but Miss Shale isn't feeling very well. You should respect a Career victor, you know." The girl from Two stomps her foot, storming out of the Center, and Constantine immediately moves over to Valencia. She feels like a boiling pot of water has been thrown over her, scarlet coating her fingertips, flesh hanging onto the tips of toes. "What's wrong, Valencia?"

She is not even upset about the first name usage. "The axe throw was exactly how Peri died..." Valencia says shakily.

"Would you like me to stop the sessions until you feel better? Would you like to go home?"

Valencia shakes her head back and forth, bulking up her throat. She feels terrible now for sabotaging another Career session, as Maren didn't deserve her own maniac form of PTSD to rear its ugly head in. She can already imagine Bonnie's scathing remarks and fiery insults at Valencia's weak emotional stance. "No, I- I just don't think we can use another axe thrower for a while," she answers. "Call the next tribute in."

_Jason Lacey_

Valencia keeps one eye shut as the next tribute enters the Center, her gaze seizing up Jason Lacey from District 9, a mayor's kid. A backsplash of blood hits her throat, another glimpse of the Games flashing behind her eyes, as Blake's sword collides with her own, nearly slicing her in two, before Marcus's arrow finds his neck, Blake's own copper liquid spewing all over her, and Valencia swallowing her scream. She is able to say, looking at Jason down below in all of his skittishness, that he is no Blake Hanley, able to wield a sword or a scythe and do crazy damage. She can practically smell the privilege wafting out of the kid, although he seems nice and well-mannered in the same way Constantine would be considered nice and well-mannered, he is entirely unprepared.

Jason wanders over to the ranged weapon station again, she half fearing for her life that he'll pick up an axe - axes have not brought good fortune onto the inhabitants of the training center today - but instead he picks a spear off of the shelf, it being just under three and a half feet, as if he himself had been cut in half. Jason takes a running start after stepping away from the platform, throwing the spear forward, it soaring in the sky, but it only manages to strike at the leg of the dummy he throws it at. A look of sheer disappointment crosses his face, Jason biting on his lower lip, and this time he picks a lance, something much longer, and it seems he has a hard time picking it up and holding it horizontally. Constantine scoffs to herself, over at her perch, and then Jason goes back even further than before.

The boy from Nine makes another running head start, chucking the lance with a stronger, seemingly more sudden burst of strength, and the javelin lands elsewhere on the same dummy, skewering straight through to the liver, a much better throw, it poking out the other side. Constantine dismisses him warmly enough, but when Valencia looks at her rather fleetingly, she sees it enough, the look of disappointment that the Head Gamemaker is unable to hide, how her lip downturns into a frown as she writes some notes with the quick swiping of her pen.

_Aris Lindel_

Another Career, and Valencia is not sure if her heart can take it. She realizes, with a saddened heart, as Aris Lindel walks in for his session, that only one remains and she has no idea how she'll be able to face the reality of it. However, focusing on the one at hand down below them, something churns in her stomach. Valencia could just vomit looking at Aris, he standing tall and set back, somewhat thinner than she expects, but there's an attractive build to him, a formidable aggression she sees in the way he locks his jaw. She senses a lot of Milor in the kid, perhaps he even knowing him, but there's something behind this guy's eyes that sets him different from her old ally, now withered and decaying in the ground. It is a pride that glows like a glittering mound of gold guarded by a leviathan's bite.

Before he even starts his session, Aris steps up close to the veranda, nodding at Constantine, and even nodding at Valencia, her heart warming at the acknowledgement. "I just wanted to say thank you, Ms. Fallorne," the victor frowns at the title. How would he know about Constantine being a Ms.? "For the opportunity I get here, to have the privilege of performing for you."

"Such a gentleman," Constantine smiles, but there's a solidifying stance to her smile as she rests one hand on her clipboard. "Flattery won't get you anywhere, Mr. Lindel, unless you have skill to back it up." That wipes the smile away unbelievably quick, Valencia nearly bursting out in laughter at the immediate reversal in disposition.

Aris swivels away from the duo, practically stalking over to the sword station, wrenching one of the rack. She can tell right away that Constantine has gotten to him, her words settling underneath his skin with a prophylactic tenacity as Aris swings his sword with a wild, reckless abandon everywhere, hitting and slicing whatever metal is able to touch, and although he leaves a choking mess in his wake, Valencia is not impressed in the fact he is incapable of reining in his temperament and his emotions. She's seen the tapes. She knows how Milor died, caught up in his rage of fate and her destined doom that is never ordained.

She hopes that Aris does not succumb to the same mistakes.

_Ciphra Longsdale_

What Valencia notices the moment Ciphra steps over the threshold is the wild brightness in her eyes. District 3 must be some sort of entertaining theatrical pair, given their antics. The brightness behind the girl from Three's eyes is one of imaginative power, as she surveys the room, Valencia seeing that Ciphra's hands are constantly moving, her fingers bending back and forth as if she is playing a piano out in front of her. There is a skip to her step, a jolliness that Valencia hasn't seen replicated since Maisey's death in the arena, but she imagines - wouldn't that be ironic? - that Ciphra is somewhat more grounded in reality than Maisey, as the girl is looking like dead meat the more time passes, for Ciphra steps up to the rope station, which hasn't been touched yet.

The girl's fingers ably make a few knots, Ciphra showing them out to Valencia and Constantine with an appreciative _ta-da _in her hand movements, Constantine nodding her head and humming lowly, but there is the ever perceptible shake of her head as she does this, scribbling down a few notes. The girl from Three then winds all the knots together that she's made, presenting them in one large mural, Valencia impressed by the handiwork. Ciphra, however, does not seem to do anything else with the knots, having made a snowflake out of them, laying them all down on the floor like it is a fossil to be uncovered.

Unfortunately, Valencia noting this with an all familiar sense of disappointment in her head, rather unremarkable, rather Bloodbath material if she's wanting to bet. However, with the brightness she sees, there's always a hidden darkness just waiting to be revealed, and at that thought, as she looks at Ciphra and her swinging ponytail exit the training center, that thought hits her heart like an ice pick being wedged in between the chambers.

_Amaris O'Hara_

Valencia's skin bristles with electricity the moment the next tribute steps in, a vengeful look in her eyes, a muscle mass protruding from the uniform, and the victor sits forward with a startle at the similarity of their body types, which are rather similar indeed. Amaris has her hair tied back into a taut bun, fists already clenched by her side, and just from the way she stands on the mat, having taken her shoes off, being barefoot, that she knows how to scrap, or at least fight. It is what she appears to do, having two trainers get called over, and just like Jules, the moment the whistle rings, she's rushed. Amaris ducks into a dive roll, going straight through the legs of one of the trainer's striking them with the back of her hand across their head, they spinning around in a daze from the hit.

She blocks one punch to her chest with a hand, seizing the other with her left, and then sweeping the trainer out from under them, still locked onto their grip. Valencia watches the fight with wide eyes, Constantine matching suit, both women enthralled in the duel. Amaris does a quick two punch to one of the trainers in the chest, that knocking the wind out of them, they collapsing back and seemingly not getting up. She is struck across the face with a slap, she trying to wrench the other trainer into a headlock, but that only seems to enrage the tribute even further. Making an animalistic growl, Amaris knocks the trainer in the gut with a deft slug, that bringing them to their knees. Amaris's face is twisted into a rage, she grabbing the trainer around the neck with her elbow into their Adam's apple, and a chill snaps Valencia's blood cold, as the way the girl from Six has hands positioned, she could snap their neck like a twig. Her breathing is heavy, enunciated by the rising and falling of her upper body.

Constantine places her fingers in her mouth, whistling sharply, shrilly, breaking Amaris's concentration, but she does not release the trainer from her chokehold. "Miss O'Hara, you can stop now," Amaris grits her teeth, seemingly tightening her grip, but by that point the trainer is doing all he can to wiggle out of it. "_Amaris,_ at ease," Constantine says again, but it is the exact order of _at ease _that seems to do it, and Amaris fully releases the tribute, thankfully not breaking his neck. Her face flushes scarlet without much preamble, she rushing out of the center before the Head Gamemaker could make another command.

Valencia looks at Constantine with a silent look of wonder. "Why'd she follow an 'at ease' command?" she asks.

"Amaris is one of the Peacekeepers for District 6," Constantine says, and that's news to Valencia's ears. Criston did not say anything of the sort when she saw him yesterday. "If a Peacekeeper, active and on duty or not, does not listen to an 'at ease' command, it is a punishable, often severe, offense," and then, with a hint of sadness on her voice. "They're all just trained dogs, Valencia, and even the best trained dog needs to be put down eventually."

_Audhild Olthono_

The girl is not going to survive. Valencia knows this deep down, looking at her from the high perch, as she wanders into the Center after her name is called. She has heart, a seriousness to her demeanor, and unlike what Valencia expects twelve year-olds to be like, she does not hesitate when looking around the options laid before her, as most would be paralyzed by the overwhelming flood of decisions, but it seems Audhild knows exactly what she wants to do. She steps over to the knife station, but instead of throwing them, she takes one off of the rack, going over to the dummies, and Valencia has mapped out the path she'll take just by this first step. Audhild stands in front of an array of dummies, after arranging them in a line, and then the girl closes her eyes.

Both of them hang onto the thaw of noise as Audhild stands there, seemingly muttering to herself as Valencia sees the girl's lips moving, yet she doesn't hear what is being said. Suddenly, after a long, belabored pause where Valencia is sure Constantine is going to shout at the little girl, the female tribute from Nine unleashes a scream, launching herself at the first dummy, knocking it to the floor. Valencia jerks back in her chair, but Constantine zooms straight up to the front, pulling her chair all the way to the edge where she can look over. Audhild makes the face of the dummy an unrecognizable mess of plastic destruction, shattered lines this way and that back and forth, broken up waves of tattered mechanical strips blowing in the wind.

Audhild tackles the next dummy, doing the exact same, stabbing it in the face and shredding it to bits, doing this for the next four dummies after that. Six all lie on their backs, shredded and torn like a tiger's claws slashing through wrapping paper. Audhild is out of breath, cheeks flushed in a harsh carmine tint, she slowly, but surely, moving back to the station, placing the knife down, and her session is complete. Valencia whistles lowly as she exits.

She feels bad for whatever tribute gets on her bad side in the arena, that's for sure.

_Rodric Oxford _

Valencia expects great things out of Rodric, simply by looking at him and his tall stature, bulking muscles, and the fact he calls over a trainer to wrestle. She isn't sure whether or not he'll be on the same level as Amaris had been, for some sort of devil must've possessed the girl from District 6, but it is over before it even starts. Rodric lurches forward, his foot getting caught on the mat, crashing unceremoniously down onto the leather, and Constantine _boos. _Damn, that's harsh. Rodric grits his teeth together, falling frontwards, and the trainer is on him like a dog to a bone, pinning him to the mat. The male grunts out in surprise, barely holding the trainer up by his hands, but there already seems to be a slight struggle in his movements, arms protesting. Valencia doesn't understand how there can be such a discretion between the appearance and physicality.

Rodric does manage to keep the trainer up and off of him for about a minute, but each passing second is a warzone hit, a bombardment of artillery shells to his gut, until he's put into a headlock, tapping out without even struggling out of it. He pushes the trainer off of him, a scowl on his face, and he doesn't need to wait for Constantine's dismissal to leave. She can say, without a doubt, thus has been the most disappointing session of them all so far.

_Satin Spinel_

Her mouth has gone dry the moment the last Career steps in for her private session, and Satin's eyes immediately lock with hers, a look of disappointment on her face. Valencia knows that if she hadn't been picked for the Career volunteer last year like she had been, by Kevia and Lance's searching eyes, it would have been Satin, the two practically direct competition for their age group, but Valencia manages to win out. Satin's blonde hair - _she has blonde hair! How dare she! _\- flicks against her back, she making her way to the knife throwing station. Constantine's own gaze passes between the tribute and the victor, some sort of telling emotion in there, perhaps amusement, but Valencia does not have the time for it right now.

Satin picks up a blade, one very fine looking, takes her stance, and throws it quickly down the aisle. It hits the dummy straight in the chest, sticking out of the bulls-eye. It is her specialty - _"The Spinel specialty," Satin would chirp with her arrogant voice that made Valencia want to hurl _\- and she's always hit the bulls-eye whenever she throws a knife, that having been the common occurrence for the last three years at least. Satin does another two throws just like that at the two adjacent dummies off to the side, and then grabs a fourth knife, the last on the stand. However, as Satin goes to throw it, her feet sweep slightly to the left, as if her shoes were stuck to the mat and unable to be ripped free, the blade ripping out of her hand in a sideways pattern, completely missing the dummy entirely.

"Motherfucker!" Satin screeches in anger, and without another word from Constantine, she stomps out of the training center.

A moment of silence passes over both women, Constantine looking at Valencia, a humor glistening in her eyes. "You're much better than her, Valencia."

She is not sure if she needs that stamp of approval.

_Zola Taonga _

Perhaps Valencia is exhausted, but she is already half asleep by the time Zola enters for her session, and she can see how people, these old Gamemakers stuffing their faces with food would be so tired from sitting here for what feels like forever, not moving, watching tributes either excel or collapse into the muck. The girl from Eleven steps onto the obstacle course, reminiscent of Tach from what feels like eons ago, and she takes at it, dodging underneath clubs and strikes, leaping over a few trainers with what has to be a dancer's touch, and she actually makes it to the other side. Constantine's face is one of disinterest, which might be a bit cruel, but Valencia does the honors for her, clapping and smiling slightly.

It is good, not many tributes are able to make it to the other side. But would that deserve anything higher than a six? It seems that Zola does not have any other plans, stepping away and out of the Center when she's done. No weapons training, no thank you's or even speaking... just running the obstacle course.

What would that even deserve?

_Vanya Vasiliev_

"It is wonderful to see you again, Mr. Vasiliev!" Constantine gets to her feet, applauding his arrival. Valencia recognizes his face, she's pretty certain, having seen him before during one of his ballet shows, the rather unfortunate roll of the wheel in being a chosen tribute for the Games. "Do you have a skill for us?"

"It might be rather unorthodox," Vanya admits, and _gods, _if Valencia hadn't had her heart stolen by Persephone all those days ago, she might readily admit to wanting to jump from the threshold and taking Vanya in her arms as he is exquisitely beautiful. Of course, is name seems to help as well. Then, as if she has been touched by lightning, Vanya takes off his shirt, showing a sculpted body like marble, muscled and tone, calves that could choke a bear... he stripped down to his underwear, and then, without even seeming to lift his feet off of the ground, did a front flip.

Constantine claps excitedly as Vanya tumbles and glides across the room, doing a dance routine as his session while the clock winds down. Valencia is entranced at his movement, like free flowing water, where his legs are able to be kicked to his head, an arabesque showing off the tone of his feet, so perfectly pointed they could be as sharp as the sword she had in the Games. Vanya ends the number by doing a fifteen pirouette turns without stopping into a glissade leap down to the floor, his arms thrown out behind him, body hardly having broken a sweat, and she's sure she's in love.

The Head Gamemaker is still applauding him and his delightful routine as Vanya puts his pants and shirt back on, the gorgeous body hidden once more by the veil of dark leather. Valencia knows that whatever score he gets, it'll be one Constantine would have to judge against all the others, as she's not sure where she'd put him given the rest of the stack. He's talented, sure, but other tributes actually did _fighting..._

Thank the heavens she's not a Gamemaker.

_Cambric Vogel _

Valencia nearly hurls the moment Cambric's session begins, a cry of alarm breaking from her throat, she leaping to her feet, Constantine likewise. "Relax!" Cambric shouts, unable to move his arms given the fact that the male from District 8 is currently stabbing a blade into his left arm. "I am stabbing myself in the way that I am not officially doing too much damage, nor will I be doing anything that causes any lasting hurt." It may not be a physical stab wound, but it is something about the size of a pin that Cambric is currently pushing through the middle of the arm. From their perch, Valencia doesn't see any blood or anything of the sort, but that's impossible... there'd have to be!

She knows, however, now, that they're probably overreacting. If a tribute wanted to actually end their lives in the training center, they would've, instead of being an asshole and doing it for an audience to see. Constantine has one hand hovering over the panic button as she watches, but as Cambric guides the needle through, it is almost awe-inspiring, especially when Cambric finishes, the needle now poking out the other end. "No blood," Cambric announces, and there's a wicked, genuine happy smile on his face. "I didn't cut a single artery or vein with this, and I promise you, it isn't a trick."

"I've- I've never seen anyone do that before, Mr. Vogel," Constantine admits, a look of pure amazement on her face. "I- please, though, before you make me sick, leave."

The boy doesn't need to be told anymore, and Cambric departs, being told to leave the needle behind.

_Vivian Whiplash_

The last tribute. The final tribute, and Valencia knows she's seen some impressive kids come through the sessions, now following in Cambric's footsteps. Vivian Whiplash - Valencia has to give credit for her parents, that is one badass name given to their daughter - steps into the center, clearly knowing she is the last to go, wandering over to the knife rack. She picks up a blade, combing through the choices, settling on one that is about half of her own arm - Valencia is partially afraid that she is going to shove the blade into her gut, and she's not sure if the Peacekeepers would be able to save her then, if that happened - and Vivian then throws the blade onto a dead bulls-eye. Her next stop is the bow and arrow station, being the very first tribute to even pick the bow up, firing two shots that take off both arms on the dummy.

It seems though, as she goes to do something else, Constantine tells her to stop, and before Vivian can protest, a Peacekeeper makes a motion towards her, that seeming to do the trick. Constantine Fallorne must be exhausted or overwhelmed by the talent, or both, as the Head Gamemaker sets her clipboard aside, rubbing her brow, rubbing her face, looking done with it all, as if she'd never want to witness another private session in her life. With Vivian disappearing, it is the end of the sessions, and Valencia never wants to do a thing like that ever again.

...

...

...

"Thank God that's over," Valencia says, collapsing back into her chair not having sat down from Cambric's session and remaining upright through Vivian's. Constantine moves the plate of strawberries over to her side, offering Valencia one, but she refuses, shaking her head with a soft smile. Some of them really did seem like contenders, such as Cyril, Amaris, Mirek, Vivian, and a few others, but she is unable to get out of her head the moment Sage took aim at the two of them. She has not felt her heart beat like that in forever, until Peri's own fire laced doom bears down above her, bears down before her. Then there are some, like sweet little Sophiana, Ciphra, Tach, Roanoke... where will they fall? Where will they go? Valencia squeezes the bridge of her nose, letting out a sigh. Seeing them all in quick succession before it is over, like that, it is profound. When she had been a tribute, exactly a year ago, she hadn't looked at the other tributes like that. She is the same age as a good chunk of them! She tries imagining herself being allies with the Careers of this batch, but all she sees is a heavy, thick, smoggy cloud resting over her eyes.

Something causes her to frown, though, as she sits there, stretching out her legs. It had been the belabored pausing. The pauses had been longer, surely, with her volatile reactions to Sage's throw, Cambric's needle presentation, and Maren's slice representing dead enemies of a bygone era, but it is the pause she notices after Tach, but before Roanoke, as well as for the other tributes between those without irregularities. Valencia remembers sitting in the quarantine - it wasn't exactly a quarantine, but it is the word Carrion uses, drunk off his ass from some stolen vodka out of the mentor's cabinet in the kitchen - and the moment one tribute is called and finished, the next is placed on deck. Constantine looks over at her, finishing another strawberry, dropping the end piece with a _plop._

"So, what did you think?" she asks, and Constantine unclicks her pen for the last time. Valencia swears she'll hear that in her sleep for a millenia. "How were they looking to you?"

"Decently talented," Valencia agrees.

"Any of them intimidate you?"

"I'm not in an arena with them," she says, and Constantine's eyes narrow in on her, a predatorily gaze with razor sharp intent. "So, no, Constantine," It is odd calling her that, by her first name. She isn't even sure calling Bonnie, well, 'Bonnie' in conversation is appropriate. "They do not intimidate me. However," Valencia pauses, and the Head Gamemaker's eyebrows raise, hanging onto every syllable uttered. "Why the long pauses?"

"Pauses, dear?" Constantine frowns.

"_Oh no," _the victor thinks to herself, "_You do not get to play stupid with me, you hag,_" and then aloud, "After each tribute finished, why the long pause? Last year everything was syncopated, immediate."

"Oh, it's nothing," the Head Gamemaker drawls out, tucking the clipboard underneath her arm. "Bonnie, wanting to speed the process up of transporting the tributes on the morning of launching, just in case anyone wishes to do them harm, has decided that when they are finished with their private session, that we put their tracker in now instead of later, to accelerate the procedure," Valencia's left hand immediately curls inward, her right hand tracing over the scar that dots her wrist, a speckled crimson dot, a trench of warfare and blood, and sometimes she can still feel the device, now long gone, pulsating underneath. Constantine's eyes linger on the touch. "Whoever the victor is will be feeling a different sort of phantom-like sensation," and Valencia looks at the Head Gamemaker in confusion. "We implanted the tracker just underneath the right side of their jaw," she shrugs after the statement, but her own hands go straight to her neck, almost unconsciously. "I have no idea why."

Valencia nods her head, all of a sudden overcome with another chill, one that makes her stomach churn like a witches' brew, she struggling to her feet. "Right... uh, thank you, Ms..." and she stops herself, not finishing the statement.

"I hope to see you again, Valencia," Constantine says, she pushing the platter of strawberries away, kicking the discarded buds over to the side, probably for some unlucky Avox to pick them all up with their bare hands, another shudder racing through the victor's body. "Actually, if you'd like, I could show you the Mutt tunnels. I'm sure during the Games you'll be too busy mentoring to even see them."

She pauses at the doorway, one hand laced on the outer block, she not daring to look back and see Constantine's face. "Mutt tunnels?"

"Oh, they're quite extraordinary, Valencia," her drawl is warm and sweet, but there's a malice hiding in there somewhere if Valencia could only taste it on her tongue, a sea brine coated in seaweed and a saltiness that turns sour, almost acidic. "It's where the mutts the Gamemakers and I create stay until we unleash them into the arena, as they're deposited into the dome just a few hours before launching. Any mutt that we decide not to use that year is kept down in the cages," and Constantine has made her way over to the other side of the platform, to head out the same exit. "You'd be amazed at the kinds down there."

"I'm sure they're magnificent," Valencia lies through her teeth, rather wanting to puke up strawberry ends all over the other woman's outfit. She steps back some, or moreso is pushed roughly out of the way by Constantine. Her arms feel clammy, as if someone has put too many articles of clothing over her skin, a heaviness weighing her down, where her feet are like cinderblocks, unable to be lifted any higher than an inch, she needing to shuffle out of the room.

The Head Gamemaker pauses, whirling around, causing the victor to stop in her tracks, a croak bubbling in her throat. "Actually, I'm curious, Valencia... you never asked."

"Asked about what, Constantine?" This is not helping her, this is not working, and she does not want to spend another second in this forsaken building.

"Me being a Ms. After I corrected you on my name, I thought you would've asked."

"It- it wouldn't have felt appropriate," Valencia has to bite down on her tongue to skip over saying 'ma'am', as she's sure Constantine would grab her by the sides and chuck her over the other side of the railing. "I shouldn't need to ask about-"

"It wouldn't be a bother in the slightest, sweetheart," Constantine flat out interrupts her, stepping back onto the platform some, Valencia shifting backwards, but she is not going to get close to the witch in the slightest. She only shows up and agrees to sitting with her out of the fact she does not need Bonnie threatening her anymore than she already has, and definitely no more slaps across the face. "Although I wasn't Head Gamemaker after Lewlyn's promotion that I was passed over for," the prominent vein in her forehead bulges out some, Valencia's eyes widening as Constantine goes the color of a tomato in the face, "I still was a Gamemaker for a good while, and that meant my husband had some privileges granted to him that some other socialites wouldn't have..." Constantine's eyes turn somewhat down, a sense of melancholy shifting her features the other way. "Many people wanted my job, and honestly, many people wanted my husband, and that means jealousy, you know. The doctors say he died of a heart attack, because it turns out I found him cheating on me with another woman, another Gamemaker on the team..." Constantine shakes her head back and forth, and then, as if she hadn't been sad in the first place, a smile creeps across her face. "You know what I think killed my husband?"

"No... I don't," Valencia says aloud. _I don't want to know. Why won't you let me leave? Get me out of here!_

"I think he was poisoned..." Constantine says, and as if that is a perfect note to leave the conversation on, she turns around to leave, Valencia standing there entirely shellshocked, lost for words at the weirdness presented in front of her. The victor goes to leave, but it seems that they're not done, as the Head Gamemaker rushes right back up into the room, scaring her half to death, Constantine hanging onto the walls, leaning forward like a rebounding slingshot. "Valencia, dear, be honest with me. Did you enjoy sitting with me? Are you enjoying your time in the Capitol?"

"Absolutely, Constantine," she replies immediately. She's learned that lying is the only thing that saves your skin here in the Capitol, where everyone else is already lying about something else: their weight, sexuality, marital status, drinking problems, the fact they can't have regular skin tones... what would one exact drop into the puddle do? It wouldn't create any wrinkles. "I absolutely love it here."

Constantine clucks her tongue, leaning up against the wall, smirking. "You don't have to lie, Valencia. I know you hate it here. _I _hate it here," and the victor furrows her brow in confusion. How- how would she...? "The truth is, everyone here in the Capitol sucks. Everyone here is a liar, or they are a murderer, or an adulterer, or a stealer... there's no one good or innocent that lives here, and it is okay to admit that. I don't want to live anywhere else though, milling with the peasants in the districts," Valencia's blood boils slightly at the comment. "I knew you would lie to me, if I asked you if you had a good time," the Head Gamemaker removes herself from the wall, patting Valencia on the back, she jostling under the touch as if a thousand volts of electricity went spiraling down her spine. "You know, Valencia, if you want people to believe your shitty answers, you got to stop looking like you think you've done something wrong. You've got to get that fearful look out of your eyes," and then, as if her smirk could get any worse, it lengthens out, "If I don't believe your answers, do you honestly think Bonnie does either?"

Valencia doesn't have a response to that, but it doesn't seem she needs to, either, as Constantine bids the victor goodbye, vanishing in a whirlwind of fabric and gray hair, and although she is sure it is her wild imagination at play, it is as if the Head Gamemaker is cackling as she makes her way to the elevator.

What on Earth just happened?

Her heartbeat roars in its chest, at the implications of the words just spoken to her since Vivian's session ended.

What sort of viper's nest has she gotten herself entangled in?

* * *

**Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the Private Sessions... that was Chapter #17: Locked Out of Paradise, and this has been the longest chapter I have ever posted in the Slaughter universe, and actually the longest chapter I have ever written for a Hunger Games story - I have a good amount of chapters for my Smash Bros stories that are another 4k larger than this - and I am so proud that it took me only about four and a half hours to do so without stopping, because my insanity called for it.**

**We have gone through every tribute and now starts their second round of POVS, in which with only four tribute chapters, we're gonna have twenty four tribute POV's to get through, so buckle up as the 101st Games approach soon, very soon. Which sessions were your favorite? Anyone surprise you or underwhelm you? What do you think the scores will fall to? I have to admit I had a whole lot of fun with this chapter, and I cannot wait for the rest to come. Also, can't forget that Valencia and Constantine have made some bridges in their relationship, and perhaps not for the best.**

**Next chapter, Chapter #18: An Oasis of Victory, is going to be the revealing of the tribute scores, and these POVs are not going to be randomized, as I have decided who will be getting what POV per chapter. I am very excited for what is to come, and I hope you are too. Please review, and I would apologize about the word count, but I am beyond proud of myself, haha. I hope you all have an amazing day! I love you all so much! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	18. Oasis of Victory (Scores)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #18: Oasis of Victory, where we find out the training scores from the gargantuan chapter I posted last time for the private sessions - still not sorry about that, expect long word count chapters to be a consistent thing in any of my stories from now on! - where Valencia saw every tribute, all twenty-four of them, perform. We've got four POV's coming to ya today, seeing Tach from District 3, Sage of District 7, Rodric of District 10, and Maren of District 2, and I am very excited to move forward as we're really close to the start of these tributes being killed - god, that sounds terrible, forgive me for my excitement - and I'm right on track, which helps. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #18: Oasis of Victory.**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, wash me clean of my wounds so I can be battered and bruised for you all over again._

**_Tach Andon: District 3 Male P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

Make an impression they say. Try to look super impressive they say. Try to have them remember you years down the line... all these phrases the mentors tell these poor tributes and Tach Andon is entirely incapable of going out there and doing just that. He paces the third floor of the training center living room, barefoot, biting on his cuticles and his lower lip, ripping away skin and feeling copper splash over his cheeks, the sweet air hissing at the exposed undersides of his fingers. He hasn't been able to find Ciphra since she came back from her own session, perhaps somewhere around the halfway mark due to her last name. Tach is unsure whether or not she hears his greeting as she hustles past him, bursting out of the elevator doors like an exploded canister of fruit that has spoiled, mangy and reeking of fecal matter. She should be in her room, but Tach has literally been incapable of finding her, as it has been two hours since the sessions were over and the scores would be getting announced soon.

He rubs a hand just underneath his jaw, at the lining of the muscles at his throat, on the right side, fingers slowly trailing around the circular implant placed there. Tach knows a lot about the tracker system in the arena, as every tribute requires one, but normally - of course things are not normal, especially after an Avox cries for rebellion on the big screen - they go in the arm during the tribute launching, not- he gulps at the thought... not after the private sessions. He believes it is the end of all things, moreso his life being snapped like a twig, when the two Peacekeepers rush him on both sides, holding him by the shoulders and forcibly moving him down to his knees. He isn't so sure now if he started crying or yelling in the middle of it, but when the technician - Tach sure as hell is not calling them a doctor by any means - in some sort of lab coat that looks like it had been freshly painted, chipping off and running onto the tile, walks up to him.

One of the Peacekeepers grips the hard bit under his jaw, wrenching his head back so hard the tribute swears vertebrae in his back popped. He's shaking his head back and forth in the blizzard dog's grip, while the technician soothingly places one hand on his shoulder, whispering sweet sexual nothings - Tach actually isn't sure what is said, but it all sounded terrifying so he doesn't care how it is classified anymore - before showing the needle that would place the tracker into his arm, but before he is able to reply, the plunger is driven into his neck, and he feels it travel into him like a scarab beetle. He crawls like one as well, with their onyx shells, the moment he is released onto the floor, scrambling away from all three Capitol rats and into the corner. The technician sighs something to themselves sadly, before walking over and explaining the process that had just been done.

Tach's mouth feels like he's swallowed spoonfulls of honey and yogurt as there are many questions he wishes to ask while lying there, but he doesn't, it simply sits in his throat, humming.

_Why the jaw? Why now?_

The technician calmly explains, hands still folded, that every tribute will have this happen to them, not just Tach, so he's nothing special - gee, way to rub it in, guys - and he's sent on his merry way. No one is on the floor when he returns, given that Ciphra has yet to go, and both of their mentors and escort are at the sponsoring booths, which he finds folly, unfortunately in the perspective of being realistic, as he knows the District 3 team is not having sponsors line up round the building like One and Six. Tach twiddles with his thumbs for a few minutes, but since he's first, and Ciphra is in the middle, he'll be waiting for her for at least half an hour on the upend of forty-five minutes. Now, with the sessions being over and done with, the quickening pace in his heart has yet to cease, as if it is only getting faster and faster. He finds it extremely odd that no one besides his district partner and the Avoxes always kept on end will be the ones to witness the scores, as he expects that the people trying to keep him alive would want to see them too, but it only has him laughing. _Come see the momentous District Three and all of their failing glory!_

There's never been a rule he's been unable to bend - not break, his confidence does not go that far - and he's never asked his parents how much the surgery cost, except that it cost a lot, as he signs up for tesserae twice at fourteen and luckily, with fingers twisted around one another like a pale ouroboros, his new name is picked up out of the bowl. _"Last year was poor_ Deacon," he thinks to himself sadly, "_And this year, me. Doesn't look like our track record is anything that impressive, I suppose..._" The self-defecating humor needs to stop, but Tach knows that to remain inside the boundaries he has selected with various sticks, he needs to constantly rib at himself or otherwise he'll forget himself and maybe decide to take a skittish leap too early off of the plate and set off everyone's mind field. That- that would be quite the way to go, wouldn't it?

Tach stops by one of the arms of the couch, its leather shining beautifully in the sun, like the slicked back grip of a microscope or- his mind blanks for a second, as he is no longer thinking of anything scientific in the cellular mode, but in the technological one, gaze snapping directly to Ciphra who has emerged from her room, cheeks stained a fresh and bright cardinal, tears streaking and staining the otherwise flustered flesh in single divots of light. Her robot, Veracity, is what comes to his mind, with oil slicks dripping off of the mechanical cogs, immobile devices that clunk together, loud enough where Tach can hear it - _him? _He's not so sure of the pronoun usage - walking in the Longsdale house while he's asleep, or trying to go to sleep. He has no idea where the obsession of the robot really came from, nor the insane idea of wanting to do a banshee swoop into Ciphra's bedroom to steal the robot away, but the less he speaks of it, the less he needs to confront the issue.

"Hey!" he greets her, flashing an iconic smile of his, Tach's best attribute or so he's been told by the thousands of people that have been on the receiving end of his smile. "I couldn't find you earlier. Are you okay?"

Ciphra nods mutely at him, sinking into the leather of the couch as she sits down, absorbed into the veil of darkness. She has been crying for a long time, he's sure, given the state of her eyes, and her state causes Tach to take a step back as he didn't think there'd be another side to his district partner besides her generally effervescent and bubbly self, instead of this melancholic monster that has taken ahold. He could sense something troubling behind her stare at breakfast, where she mumbles her answers to questions asked round the table into her oatmeal, spewing a few flakes onto the decorative lining, but she doesn't seem more deterred than that; he wonders what could have possibly changed in there, with Head Gamemaker Fallorne and the new victor. Tach is afraid to admit his insecurity, but having the Career victor of a Quell watch the private sessions, since it is not something relegated to any of the tributes beforehand as far as Tach knows, almost has him walk out the other side.

He doesn't, obviously, but he knows he most certainly underperformed.

His district partner has her hair tied back into a simple ponytail, nothing elegant of the sort, she pulling at a few strands so hard, Tach is afraid she might just rip her entire head clean off and he has no idea how he'll deal or recuperate seeing that happen. "I was hiding underneath the bed. I-" Ciphra clenches her jaw shut, turning her head to the side some. "It doesn't matter what I was doing, actually..." she shakes her head some, Tach furrowing his eyebrows together, as he's entirely unable to read her facial expressions. "How did you do, you think? What did you do?"

Tach rubs the back of his neck, his skin feeling sticky as if his hand would be attached to his neck like a wad of gum. "I dunno. Going first doesn't have its perks when it is someone as unremarkable as me," he says, half-jokingly, but he notices the way Ciphra raises her own eyebrow at the wounding statement. "I made the Head Gamemaker laugh, though, and I don't know if that'll be a good or a bad thing, you know?" He'll hear that woman's laugh in his head until the end of time, and if he is to die in some sort of cursed arena or a bombed out stronghold or even if it means he dies of old age in a withered state with sheets clinging to a fragile form, Tach does not want the Head Gamemaker's laugh to be the last thing he recalls until Death slices his throat open. Or Satin's knives. It doesn't really matter, but the point still stands. "I narrated myself going through the obstacle course," he grins again, showing pearly whites, trying to smirk. "I made a total ass of myself and I think she ate it up. What about you?"

Ciphra runs a few of her fingers of her right hand up against the arm of the couch, fingernails digging into the material. "I tied a lot of knots and then made a snowflake..." her voice is solid, dead serious, and when she looks up at Tach with a complete expression of resignation, Tach has to bite down on his tongue to stem his own amusement. "I'm serious, Tach! I made a snowflake. How the hell is that going to get me anything?"

He shrugs. "Maybe Ms. Fallorne likes art? I bet you'll get a twelve."

Some of the old light seems to return as Ciphra smiles at him briefly, not showing too much curl in the lip, she wiping away at the tears. A warmth spreads in Tach's stomach, but not one of disgust or vomit, a warmth out of kindness, for it is surely that smile evoking the reaction taking place. He's been told to have that aura about him, a sweetness not often found in District 3's scholars and engineers, everyone focused on the science of it all, of being one impressive enough to garner the attention of the Capitol in the hopes of improving their station and their livelihood, but Tach has not been focused on any of that beyond simply being a decent human being, and he sure hopes he lives up to that rule.

"I'll humor you just this once," Ciphra says, keeping that faint smile.

Tach sits opposite her in one of the wooden chairs that is moved into the corner by an Avox just as he walked back onto their floor after his private session, his throat still humming with the live tracker placed underneath the skin. The chair is rather uncomfortable, but looks remarkably well-done, as if a god came down from the heavens and touched the rather bleak presentation and exploded it with gifts of an artisan nature. It creaks whenever he shifts his weight, dispelling the awkward silence that passes between the two of them. He looks over at Ciphra, she locking eyes with him, and he's about to say something about the robot, about Veracity, a question perhaps, when her face darkens again, lips pursing, and a chill races through Tach.

He's caught her doing that a few times, since the train rides, and he recalls it vividly once during the tribute parade. The two of them are having the time of their life, when all of a sudden Ciphra looks over at him amidst all the noise and bustle, her eyes dimming as if someone flipped a switch inside of her, the smile vanishing into an open look of fright, and her fingers began to tremble. Tach goes to ask her what is wrong when his district partner squeezes her eyes shut for a few moments, whispering something to herself, and then a few moments later she's standing still as if nothing has happened, and Tach decides not to bring it up again. He's caught her doing it several times during training, not just when looking at him, but also looking at Audhild, Magdalena, Zola, Jules, Roanoke, and a few of the Careers, but he's not sure if her looking at the Careers minus Jules is more just out of fear of being skewered to death.

"What do you do that for?" Tach asks, sitting upright. He is normally not confrontational, but there is no way he is going to go another day without finding the truth, as it is starting to weird him out, why any sort of pleasant interaction he has with Ciphra is tainted by some sort of darkness he cannot see, for whenever he looks at her when she is in one of these states a chill glides over his body, hugging him in a gelid embrace.

"Do what?" Ciphra asks, blinking at him as if she didn't hear him, which he'll call absolute bullshit on given she looks over at him at the sound of his voice.

"You look at me all nice like, and then all of a sudden your face changes into horror," he explains, and she continues to presumably override him, but Tach wants to know, and damnit, it curiosity didn't kill the cat, huh? "It's not just me I've seen you do it to. Audhild, Zola, Roanoke, and a few others too, when we're training," Tach shakes his head back and forth, a lump building in his throat. "It's the worst thing I've ever seen, Ciphra, and it scares me."

His district partner stands up from her seat as if a bolt of lighting has been jammed in between her shoulder blades. "I can't tell you, Tach, I-"

"You can tell me," he insists, getting to his feet as well, moving over to her. "And you're going to tell me now." Tach hesitates between allowing his demand to do enough talking, or if he should grab her wrist, and before he can even process what he is doing, he's reached out, gripping her by the wrist, stopping Ciphra should she try to flee. She seems to rut in place, like a moment of static dancing between the folds of space and time. Her eyebrows are furrowed together, emerald eyes alit with shock, but she stands still, he letting go of her wrist. "If we're gonna be district partners, Ciphra, we can't keep secrets from each other," and he knows full and damn well he's spoken a lie into existence, for there are things she'll never learn about him, and he wishes to keep it that way.

Ciphra wrenches her arm free, a scowl on her face. "I'm not telling you a thing, Tach, and especially not if you're going to speak to me that way."

Perhaps he's overstretched his boundaries, for a lot of the words he wishes he could say, the apologies among them dying in his throat with a squeak, a mouse stabbed to death on paper plate with a toothpick pining its pitiful little pink tongue to the scratchy surface. Ciphra brushes past him back into her room, probably to go back under her bed, but Tach does not follow, for he knows when he is not wanted. Following... he might as well let her kill him here and now if he had a death wish. The apology is spoken to the walls instead, and his heart is yelling at him for his foolishness.

He believes he is to be getting somewhere with her, even so to the point to admit his own mistakes too in the light of day, but he's taken a single step forward and a thousand steps back.

Tach Andon surely isn't special, he knows that now, and he doesn't need a Capitol technician to tell him that.

* * *

**_Sage Dagoba: District 7 Female P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

She has no idea why she did it. Well, actually that's a lie, she knows full and well why the hilt of the axe went flying out of her grip towards the Head Gamemaker, but there's no reason for her to have to admit it, and especially not to Roanoke, who is standing over her, hands on hips - it is quite the ridiculous look for him, and one that does not do him any favors in the slightest - and asking over and over again why a Peacekeeper escort forces her into the District 7 apartment, practically uncouthly vaulting her onto the floor and leaving her there in a plume of dust, a look of rage etched across her face. Sage stands there, inside that training center, doing quite well for herself, getting the bulls-eye with a couple throws after all, hearing the way Constantine - _excuse me, _she could practically hear the old lady prattle on and on, _Ms. Fallorne, you stupid girl _\- laughs and jokes about her other tributes while she is doing her own session. Sage knows it is also unrealistic to expect anyone, and even more so given Ms. Fallorne's- _oh screw it, she is going to call her Constantine..._ residency. Sage has discovered that the citizens of the Capitol have the attention span of an ant, and not a very large ant at that.

The woman is a bully, a bully that needs to know their place, for Sage knows that the Capitol is a viper's nest full of venomous beasts and lying mortals that all wish to beat one another up for fame and notoriety that washes away the moment they return to the Earth. Sage leans back against the seat of the couch, she sitting on the floor, sighing heavily as she can practically imagine her girlfriend's hands - _Jane, oh my sweet Jane _\- moving into her back, kissing her slowly in the nape of her neck, and Noel - _Noel, oh my darling Noel _\- standing in front of her, raking fingers through her hair, but her boyfriend and her girlfriend are not speaking sweet nothings in her ears, as those days are long gone the moment she is reaped. "_There is too much anger in you, sweetheart," _their voices are a harmonizing front, warping together and dissipating like water cascading over a rock. "_That anger blinds you to all else who moves._"

"Shut up..." Sage hisses. "Shut up, the both of you..."

Roanoke, who is pacing over in the kitchen, making himself a ham sandwich, stops his monologue, something she is half-heartedly listening to for she cannot hear anything else over the roar of blood in her ears, her district partner going on and on about reputation and the necessity of looking good for the Capitol citizens, and if Sage is allowed to be completely honest, she doesn't give a rat's ass about reputation or her image. All she needs to do is swing an axe blade, kill a few vigilantes in the arena, survive Bonnie's wickedness long enough into old age, and then at the age of seventy, slash her own throat open in a bathroom with the door locked... she doesn't care who else goes after her in that process, they all specks of dust free floating in the wind, a few of which Sage occasionally has to bash out of the way.

Her district partner sets down his knife that he had been using to spread mayonnaise over the bread - _"Eww.._. mayo," Sage shudders to herself at the idea of consuming that unholy white liquid - with a frown. "Did you just tell me to shut up, Sage?"

"No, I didn't, I-" she stops herself. Telling her only ally that she can occasionally hear the voices of her lovers in her head might send him running for the hills - not that Roanoke could survive on his own in an arena, if Sage is any judge of that sentence - is not what she wants to do, but all she can feel is the burning of her skin from where she trails her fingernails. A heat builds just at the layer where the blood vessels billow, Sage breathing heavily, in and out of her mouth, before she goes over and stabs Roanoke in the throat with his own mayonnaise knife. It is a death he would surely deserve, putting something like that on a sandwich.

Roanoke opens his mouth to say something else, perhaps an apology or another non-sensical statement about violence, but whatever it is that he would wish to say is interrupted and cut short by the sudden turning on of the TV just a few feet away from her in the center of the living room. She sits up somewhat, so at least her posture is straight - the imaginary massage is helping, too - as a processional trumpet fanfare echoes in the room. Roanoke joins her, sitting in one of the chairs nearest back to the kitchen, but he does not fully sit down, rather hovering in the air.

Replacing the noise, which has begun to quell down, is the face of the Master of Ceremonies, Pollux Aetos. Sage smirks to herself. She's found the man handsome, given he is the face of Panem and she has never gone a day without seeing his dark hair and liquidous blue eyes somewhere on a screen, but she has Noel and Jane, and he is nothing compared to the likes of her boyfriend with his auburn hair, thighs that could choke a bear, and- Sage stops herself from going down that train of thought as she does not need Roanoke looking over at her like she's lost any more marbles out of her jar. However, in just a few short hours after he's done, she'll be on stage with him, inhaling his scent, seeing how his forehead glistens up close underneath the stage lights, and she'll breathe it all in, just before she cuts his throat.

If she had her way, no one in the Capitol would live, and that's the honest truth that Sage will never tell another living soul.

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, to all of you in Panem. I am Pollux Aetos, your Master of Ceremonies, and as you know, today, the eve of the Hunger Games, our 101st year, the tributes have just finished their private sessions. Over the last three days, the tributes have been preparing for the 101st year," Sage takes a moment to notice that there's some sort of look in Pollux's eyes, out of the professionalism he usually exudes, almost like a fright hidden behind his generally stoic stare... she's seen the look enough times at kids back home before the Jovanski family found her huddled by the stairs, but she decides not to dwell on it any longer. "The tributes were watched and monitored by our newly promoted Head Gamemaker Ms. Constantine Fallorne, after the sudden departure of our previous Head Gamemaker Lewlyn Davis," Sage raises an eyebrow at the statement. Is- is Pollux _tearing up? _"After these three days of evaluation, it has culminated today where each tribute has performed for Constantine to be evaluated and given a score of competency for their skills on a scale of 1-12. Here are these scores now..."

Sage wonders what Pollux's lips taste like. It is an odd thought, but she knows what Noel and Jane taste like whenever she kisses them: spring water, sunflowers, rust, pockets of sunshine, and cherries. After all, she's thrown an axe at a Head Gamemaker and the victor of the 100th Hunger Games. What would a kiss on the lips to the Master of Ceremonies be considered? Honestly, Pollux might be lucky, getting kissed by a girl.

Pollux taps his list of cards, there being twenty-four in his hands, going through the list one-by-one, the portraits of each tribute flashing by as their score is announced to the world.

_Cyril Barther: 10 - Ten_

_Satin Spinel: 9 - Nine_

_Aris Lindel: 9 - Nine_

_Maren Johnson: 8 - Eight_

_Tach Andon: 6 - Six_

_Ciphra Longsdale: 3 - Three_

_Jules Harper: 11 - Eleven_

_Anahita Cascade: 7 - Seven_

_Seth Cables: 7 - Seven_

_Sophiana Delarosa: 2 - Two_

_Ponty Carr: 6 - Six_

_Amaris O'Hara: 11 - Eleven_

_Roanoke Arkus: 5 - Five_

_Sage Dagoba: 0 - Zero_

_Cambric Vogel: 12 - Twelve_

_Magdalena Bertha: 1 - One_

_Jason Lacey: 4 - Four_

_Audhild Olthono: 6 - Six_

_Rodric Oxford: 5 - Five_

_Vivian Whiplash: 10 - Ten_

_Vanya Vasiliev: 10 - Ten_

_Zola Taonga: 5 - Five_

_Mirek Bosco: 8 - Eight_

_Bloom Estrada: 6 - Six_

Pollux finishes reading the cards, having done his job, congratulating the scores in the high places, and then his face disappears, the trumpet fanfare signs him out, and Sage and Roanoke are both sitting there stuck in the thaw of what the _fuck _just happened.

Sage scoffs to herself. She cannot believe what she had just seen, the scores staring her blank in the face as they had gone scrolling by. First off, what the hell did that Cambric kid do to score a _twelve? _Or Vanya Vasiliev? How could some grungy backwater girl from Six manage to score as well as a pudgy Career? How could a Career like Jules get such a high score? Roanoke got a five, and-

Her mind completely stops at the next thought, as she realizes the number that had flashed across her own screen, and the burning rage settling just underneath her veins roars to life, she wrenching herself to her feet. "A zero!" she roars indignantly at the screen. "A zero? Are you kidding me?" It is a single stupid throw at a Head Gamemaker, as if that entirely erases everything else she had done up to that point, scoring so well as she did with her tosses and throws... it is not like the woman had been in any danger! It is not as if Head Gamemaker Constantine Fallorne just forgot that there is a forcefield protecting her from the outside...

Roanoke collapses into his chair, having been stuck in his hovering position for a good bit, as the actual revealing of the scores took about ten minutes total. The fight in Sage cools the moment it erupts, she letting out an anguished sigh, squeezing her eyes shut. What would Noel or Jane tell her to do? She doesn't have her guitar, nor does she feel like singing any sort of ballad about the woes of misery and failure, for she is the lowest scoring tribute out of the entire roster, when there are many tributes that she is just like, if not better than who are going to be celebrating their asses off right about now. She shouldn't have thrown the damn axe, she shouldn't have thrown the _fucking axe!_

"Well, Roanoke, congratulations," she says half heartedly. It is a fake moment of praise, for he will not be happy about getting a five, something so middle of the road that is laughable, for she doesn't see a victor when looking at her district partner, however cruel that might be.

"What did you do?" Roanoke asks, eyes wide, mystified almost, at the possibility of someone screwing up as colossally as she did.

Sage shuffles off of the carpet and onto the cold wooden floors of the apartment, the air smelling of hickory and Jane's perfume. "I lost my temper," she says, one hand gently braced up against the wall rounding off to the bedrooms. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go scream my head off into the pillows. I might break a few things... I'm not so sure yet..."

Roanoke calls after her, but he does not get up, and even if he were to follow, Sage is sure she'd just punch him in the mouth. She wants to be left alone, but better yet she wants to go back to sleep and imagine Joel kissing her again, or Jane sitting up against her shoulder to shoulder as they lie on her bed, feet kicking in the air, both girls laughing while they are perched above a notebook with pencils in their hand, writing a mixture of their first and last names as a combination together, and although Sage claims she isn't a girly-girl like that Ciphra Longsdale, or heavens forbid, as she gags on the thought, Satin Spinel, she has drawn several hearts over the collection of names.

Better yet, however, as Sage closes the door, unleashing a roar into her fist, she'll want to see nothing more than her axe actually hit Head Gamemaker Constantine Fallorne in the head, painting the linoleum floors in a sea of blood, a vermillion bath for Sage to bathe in, all the while conjuring lyrics up about a ferocious battle.

Yes, Sage Dagoba would very much like to see that happen.

She'll do anything to see that happen.

* * *

**_Rodric Oxford: District Ten Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

How does the saying go? Disappointment is in the eye of the beholder? Or is beauty? He can never quite remember the specifics. Rodric stands at the counter in the kitchen, barefoot on the tile, a half eaten grape in his hands, the other half being swallowed while he stares at the screen in disbelief. A five? The best he receives from the Gamemakers is a five? He knows he hadn't done anything spectacular or amazing or anything of the sort, but this must be some sort of joke, there has to be no other way to think about it. He's an Oxford, rich blood flows through his veins and he's been scored as low as other outer districts. Even the twelve year-old scored higher than he did! Audhild has no right to be receiving some sort of middle of the road number, he doesn't feel she deserves it. Rodric knows, he _recites_ it so much the crows fly home, that he hadn't impressed Constantine - _huh, clearly, _a voice snarks inside his head, probably his own with a few vodkas in his stomach - and this is the fallout.

Vivian is lying prostrate on the ground, maybe looking up at the etchings in the ceiling; he's not quite sure what she's doing, but she has all the reason in the world to not be doing anything given how well she's scored. Part of him flares up in jealousy, though he wishes he wouldn't, as Rodric has never found him to be an irate sort of guy, it isn't in his nature. He doesn't even have a drink in him to feel even slightly bitter, but he has to admit, it is a bit hard to look over at someone who is clearly his better besting him at every step of the way. Besides Amaris, as he's asked Lance Viel, the District 1 victor stepping in for the absent Hector and Arizona - _not absent, _Lance whispers to the two of them over shared bowls of salad, as Vivian prefers to eat in her room, _but disposed of,_ and that sends chills down his spine - she is the one with the highest odds for victory, underneath Aris and Satin who have taken the highest points. Rodric doesn't remember where he falls, but it is in the latter half, the twelve that take place in 13-24. He is lying to whoever asks if that bothers him, as he knows it is illegal to know the betting information, but Lance divulges it for a reason, clearly.

His mind wanders back to what his mother said, as he's kept the wedding rings he is given in his pocket the entire time, having half a thought to wear them, but he finds that inappropriate should he do it, and there's no one back home for him to think about in that manner, but that might be because he has no idea what he wants, or _who _he wants. If some things are certain in his life, however, he does not want Vivian who has been cold to him every step of the way ever since he came to her room late that night on the train after the reaping. Always the cold shoulder, sometimes even glaring at him, never laughing at his jokes - _well, perhaps your jokes aren't funny, Rodric, _says the voice - and never spending any time with him, although he is not necessarily begging for anyone to give him company, not having his district partner eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner with him is starting to sting a bit, especially given that this might be the last normal day he has in his life before he is murdered in some sort of arena. Unless whoever the Phoenix is comes swooping in like a bat of hell, but regardless, he knows that doom is on the horizon.

Rodric finishes the grape he had bene holding onto, the flare still burning in his chest as he puts the fruit back in the refrigerator, wandering over behind the couch, hands resting on the cool leather. "Congrats, Viv, on your score," he winces to himself the moment he speaks. "_Viv?" _he taunts himself. "_You called the one person here in the Capitol who hates you by a nickname?" _No wonder he is single, given the way he just crashed into the brick wall for that interaction. Rodric swears it must be the alcohol that keeps him sane, but if his sanity means the Oxford name is sullied, then he doesn't know what to do beyond that.

His district partner sits up, her hair pale like a winter's storm against the backdrop of the dark carpet, some sort of brown and black color mixed together to represent District 10, but Rodric thinks it looks like absolute shit, but his opinion doesn't seem to mean anything. He cannot read the expression on Vivian's face as she turns to look at him, eyebrow raised, but it is not a nice expression if that is what he is after. "What did you call me?"

"Nice job on the high score," he glides over the nickname usage. Maybe he is the one overstepping his boundaries; he isn't sure. "What did you do to get such a high number?"

"Thanks," Vivian brushes over the question, folding her arms together. "How'd you get such a bad one?"

That is jab directly to the heart, thorned and all, stabbing deeply and gushing not blood, but ichor, the free flowing life of the gods, out onto his hands. He bites down on his lip to hold back the curse word he is saving for her, as animosity will not lead him anywhere except to an early grave. If he is unable to beat a wrestling trainer in the arena, who is only exerting maybe half of their energy, how does he expect to fight the famous Tigress, as Vivian seems to parade that title above her head like it's some sort of damn sign. "I tried wrestling with a trainer and I lost," he shuffles his feet on the tile, flesh prickling at the chilled sensations. "Note heavily on the _try _part," Rodric rubs his arm innocuously, biting on the inside of his cheek, spilling copper into the basin of his mouth. "Constantine actually booed me out of the center."

She tries to hide it as best she can, but he sees it enough, the way she smirks at him as he recants the afternoon ordeal, he lifting his head, feeling that flare blossom into more than: a steamy eruption that could scald skin off like peeling a potato with an axe blade. "Did you lose because you got distracted? The hot sweaty trainer make you uncomfortable?"

Okay... that is _not _the next thing he expects to come spewing out of his district partner's mouth. Rodric crosses his arms likewise, frowning, head jostling as he tries to process the question she just asked him. How would- how could... _what? _"I'm sorry, what?"

"Oh, don't play like that with me," Vivian coos lowly in her throat, he nearly throttling her then and there. "I see the way you look at Aris and Cyril while we train."

"How do I look at them?"

"Like you want them to be your next meal," she says, lifting her head too, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "You think they're attractive."

Although something like that shouldn't bother him, it does, he shaking his head back and forth. "You're making things up, Vivian," he notes not to use the short nickname again, but he is sure as hell not calling her _Tigress; _he swears that her ego is the size of the entire damn training center, the way she walks about with her shoulders thrown back, head high, a gaze sizing up everyone as some sort of competition with their only sole purpose building towards eradication. "Besides, who I'm attracted to is none of your business, nor is it anyone else's."

"You're right about that," Vivian enunciates the sentence heavily, leaning back on her heels, running a few fingers through her loose ponytail, her pinkie wrapping around the ribbon that holds the hair in place. "But then that means the other reason why you lost is because you're weak, and I don't think you want to admit that to me, do you?" she blinks at him, trying to smile sweetly, but it only comes across as more arrogant, more selfish, more _in-your-face._

Rodric sneers at her, the nice guy façade dropping immediately. "Y'know, _Viv,_" _screw it, gloves are coming off now, bitch, _"You aren't exactly a thousand bucks either."

She gestures around her, face that of slight mockery. "Not worth anything?" Vivian leans forward, hands poised on her hips. "Rodric, I tied to be the fourth highest scoring tribute. With a Career."

"And a Capitolite rat," Rodric snaps back without hesitation. "I wouldn't make that your first value to determine self-worth."

"You're just upset you scored so terribly," she sniffs.

Rodric locks his jaw, widening his eyes in anger, taking a few steps towards her. However, in his head, his mind telling him the exact opposite of what he physically wants to do: grab Vivian by the throat and choke the life out of her until she's a pale corpse lying in their living room, and then when that is over, pound her face in with the chair she collapses next to, but his thoughts are reaffirming what she's telling him, the weakness, the weakness that pins him in place. "You know what, Vivian?" he hisses, and she throws her head in a _'yeah, what you got?'_ gesture towards him. "I am sick and tired of your 'I'm so better than everyone' attitude. No one here likes you."

"I am not here to have anyone like me, Rodric," Vivian says, getting in his face, although he has a few good inches on her. He wants to lift his hands up to strike her, but something holds him back, he unable to do just that, like he's made out of cinderblocks or something. "I'm here to survive and outlast the other twenty-three of you. If you have a problem with that, I'm sorry, but I am not dying just so you can continue being an entitled rich prick!"

"I'm entitled?" Rodric repeats the accusation incredulously, raising an eyebrow in astonishment. "That is _rich _coming from you!"

"You are so full of shit, I-" she shouts back at him, but he's not finished, Rodric Oxford is not going to get yelled at over by a girl who thinks she's so tough because she's wanted by Peacekeepers. His family, and specifically _himself, _has worked hard to get where they are, without any sort of ass-kissing, nor any need to step out of line as if they have something to prove.

"Look, I know we're not Hero and Victoria," to which Vivian snorts, and interjects a quick '_Thank God for that_', and he clenches his hands into fists at that, "As they were in love," to which she interjects, '_And idiots for volunteering_' and he has to agree with her on that, if he is going to agree with her on anything. "But is it going to kill you, _kill _you to be nice to me? To pretend you don't hate me? I mean, my god Vivian, we're district partners and you're treating me like a second class citizen!"

"That's not going to happen!" Vivian throws her hands up in the air, wrapping herself around the couch, which he finds odd as he seems to be the one on the retreat here, for she is bulking herself up to appear more intimidating. "I am not going to force myself to like you, and I don't want to!"

"Why not?" Rodric asks, shaking his head in disbelief. Never, in his life, has he met anyone as stubborn as she's been, especially in dealing with how someone else feels about him. You know, the sad part is, for Rodric, Vivian is honestly quite attractive without her terrible attitude to boot.

"Because of what you stand for," his district partner answers, and she makes her way back up to him. "You come from all this money, because your family owns some sort of ranch. You've admitted to me that you spend your free time getting wasted with friends, blowing money that your family makes on alcohol," as Vivian is saying this, a seed of guilt buries into Rodric's stomach. It is the truth, and he has said this to Lance while eating lunch, apparently loud enough so she could hear him. His parents have never said anything, and it seems that he's lost his chance for them to even confront him about the issue. "You have never once thought about using that money for anything else but selfish gains, and you know it," Rodric furrows his eyebrows together as it seems like it is causing her great pain for her to even tell him this, as her breathing has gotten shaky, her hands physically trembling. "You never had to apply for tesserae. You never had to worry about being picked for the reaping until four days ago... you lived in your own world and now that it has been ripped away from you, you don't know what to do..." Vivian shakes her head back and forth. "You're drowning, Rodric. You're just too scared to admit it."

He twists his hands together, fingers locking over one another. "You have no idea what I have to deal with," she scoffs at that, but it only causes the flare that has now consumed his entire body to burn brighter, like a supernova exploding on the back of his skull. "Maybe I like to drink to just forget, okay?"

There are tears in Vivian's eyes, fully formed tears that are gliding down her cheeks at this point, her voice raspy like she's smoked a cigarette. She prods him straight in the chest, some miniscule little swat that has him rock on his heels. "Well, next time Rodric, maybe you need to drink heavier so you can end it."

Rodric has no idea what comes over him as her words come flying out of her mouth, but all Rodric recalls is getting directly in her face, poking her in the same exact spot, but doing so with enough force that he is practically shoving her out of the way, teeth gritted, his voice barely rising above a hiss, eyes slit like a viper's. "You better sleep with one eye open, Vivian, because I'm gonna strangle you with your own fucking ribbon in your sleep."

He stalks past her without another word, Vivian turning to glare at him, his body engulfed in flames, burning with the ire of a thousand suns, and he has never hated anyone else in his entire life more than her at this exact moment, even moreso than how he's ever felt about himself.

It isn't like his day could get any worse, nor is he expecting it to.

He doesn't have time for this, he has Interviews to prepare to tonight.

And he'll make sure that all he does, if he wants to be successful about it, is drag Vivian Whiplash's name down into the mud alongside him.

* * *

**_Maren Johnson: District 2 Female P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

It is rather comical, she supposes, watching Aris stalk their floor, going into the bathroom to talk to himself in front of the mirror, and back out into the living room muttering to himself. Something to deal with first impressions, leading, and other bullshit, but Maren is now focused entirely on his movements and not on what he is saying. They are some of the first to go, and have to sit through twenty other unfortunate - or maybe not so unfortunate - souls getting their numbers, and Maren is surprised at the extremely high skewing of the numbers, for exactly twelve tributes get a score of seven or higher, the other twelve having a score of six or lower. Maren's just glad that her session being cut short still kept her in the general range for a Career, although an eight is pushing it. Aris and Satin getting nines causes her to laugh, as it is just the icing on the cake listening to the two of them never shut up about leading and needing the highest score to prove themselves to the others as if a single number is going to mean _that _much to anyone else but themselves. The rug has been thrown out from underneath them.

Maren is leaning up against the counter, elbows pressed into the granite, she still in her training outfit which she should be stripping out of, as the Interviews, or at least the decorative procedures in getting ready for the Interviews is about to happen in another half hour or so, and the uniform is starting to stick to her like taffy off of a tree. Aris has changed out of his uniform, but only the top half, he walking around bare chested, and she's surprised to see how skinny he actually is, there not being an unbelievable amount of bulk to him, but she supposes that looks could be extremely deceiving, because he had her fooled. She's not upset with her score, especially with having Ellison's hands on her shoulders, constantly telling her how she'll underperform to the point of failure. Yes, she's the lowest scoring Career - Anahita doesn't count, but she still is getting a seven at thirteen years old, and Maisey received that score last year as well, so why isn't she part of the Careers again? - but the five of them have fallen into rank after the other, taking up the scores from eight to eleven in a nice filed line.

Who cares if it isn't good enough for anyone else, may it be Ellison, her mother - her mother is certainly screaming into her pillows right about now how a Johnson has underperformed so terribly for the Head Gamemaker, in which Maren will respond snappily that the Academy is much easier to impress - Aris, or any of the other Careers. What matter is that it is good enough for herself, and at the end of the day, that is all that should matter. She smiles to herself at the thought, for the last few days have not been filled with that same exact dosage of optimism, what with having Aris over her shoulder every five seconds declaring his greatness, or Anahita's anger swarming the training center grounds as she rips dummies to shreds, all the while Jules, sweet and short Jules is arguing for his district partner's case.

Speaking of district partners, as if right on cue, Aris bustles out into the living room, still shirtless, he having worked up a sweat with his incessant pacing. He shakes his head back and forth with a scowl on his face, rubbing his hands together like some idiotic villain, a wild look in his eyes. Maren is incapable of suppressing the laughter that comes from her at the sight of him, that being enough to draw him out of his crazed stupor, like a frozen picture in time with bursts of static fraying about like rambling jolts of lightning.

"Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look?" she asks him, trying to hide her smile, failing miserably at that.

Aris blinks at her as if he's just noticed her standing there, when Maren has rooted herself up against the counter feeling the air conditioning on her back for the last half hour instead. "Not now, Maren. I'm thinking?"

"Yeah?" she crosses her arms together. "Thinking about what?"

"How to venture forth in becoming the leader of the Careers. A nine might not be the best, but it's just a minor setback and-" her district partner is starting to ramble, and good lord, when the kid starts he doesn't seem to be able to stop, Maren rolling her eyes and sighing heavily as Aris's tirade continues. She doesn't like him, if their tiny interaction on top of the chariots is anything to go by with their frigid first encounter, but she has to admit he has his own entertaining personality when he's not acting like a world grade douchebag, as she saw the way he approached Bloom and Mirek on the first day of training, fighting against Cyril's best efforts in slitting the girl from Twelve's throat open. "If I steady the course, and apologize to anyone I've disappointed and-"

"Aris, give it a rest!" Maren blurts out, and he blinks at her again, as if the command is not computing. He looks at her like a puzzled dog, and if she were to cock his head to one side, the simile would fit perfectly, and that has her biting down on her tongue for the next statement so she doesn't laugh again. "You got a nine, get over it. Cyril and Jules scored higher than you, _get over it._"

"But I was the one supposed to lead the Careers!" he protests like a little child, face starting to redden up, as if her very mentioning of the events going on his head, or the well... _reality _staring directly at him is an abomination not be viewed upon in the world, and it is absolutely asinine to comprehend. "That was my role, Maren! That's what _I _was made to be!" and Aris now jumps an octave or two, knocking over a vase resting on the windowsill next to the TV. Maren flinches at the sudden shattering of pottery, not expecting such a harsh outburst from him, and it seems that the preoccupied nature of his as all but flown away into the wind, and the gilded King Midas stance returns. "Not Satin! Not Jules! Me, Aris Lindel!"

She holds her hands out some, a lump forming in her throat. It seems as if the anger exploding out of him has reached a new height, one she didn't know is possible, for she's only seen glimpses of it from her father before, well... Maren doesn't want to dwell on that, or her mother's outbursts when one of her throws is not executed perfectly, but her voice is starting to dwindle even shortly after the diagnosis. "Aris, getting upset isn't going to change anything, just-"

"I know that being mediocre is all fine and dandy for you," Aris snaps, running a hand through his short hair, "But it is not good enough for me. My family is revered back home and all I'm gonna revere to is a nine?" He shakes his head back and forth, scrunching his nose up like he's gotten a whiff of moldy cheese decaying away on the counter. "Not gonna happen."

Whatever words Maren has to try and help soothe the situation die the moment his barb flies directly to her brain, she choking on the pleasing phrases she pulls out of thin air. Maren coughs, clutching her chest, balancing herself on the counter with her elbow, before twisting her face into a scowl. "Mediocre? I am not mediocre!"

"I should be the one leading," Aris hisses to himself, totally ignoring her prattling, pacing back and forth in a square in front of the TV. Maren's blood boils just looking at him, reminded of why she hates him so, and it wouldn't hurt if she were to go running forward and push him into the screen hard enough that a few shards will find the back of his skull and maybe end his miserable little life. "That should be me doing it; we'd all win if I were to be the leader!"

"You?" she barks a harsh laugh, his eyes finding hers, emeralds flaring up in an animalistic rage. "No one would want to follow you, Aris, for a leader."

"Says who?" Aris challenges back, locking his jaw.

"Cyril can't stand you," Maren points out, counting on her fingers, raising her eyebrows at him in a telling manner. "Satin wants to lead herself. I find you to be the biggest jerk on the planet, and I know Jules agrees with me. No one wants you to lead, and you've lost that chance the moment Jules and Cyril outscored you!" She's yelling now, but Maren has the reasoning to. She can her mother egging her on in the background, like she's tuned into the conversation, agreeing with everything she is saying, beyond the familial blood relationship.

Aris lifts his head back and cackles. _Cackles, _and Maren takes a step forward so she can wring her hands around his throat. "Jules leading the Careers? Everyone besides Audhild and Anahita are taller than him! Him being a commander? He has as much personality as a wet paper bag."

"If she was in the alliance, Anahita wouldn't want you giving her orders either," Maren says, and then, with a more inquisitive tone, "Actually, with Jules being the highest scorer, and thus being de facto leader, I suppose he'll probably put Anahita back in the alliance, huh?" She sees the way Aris's eyes ignite in anger at her words, for she's heard his sermons on how the grand and mighty Aris Lindel is a paragon of his own kind compared to the others, that there need not be an arena and that the victory crown should be placed on his head the moment he takes the stage, but only being two points higher than a fledgling tiny girl from Four while claiming to be the next infamous Career victor in the history of the Games... it would be like rubbing salt in an already open wound.

Maren thinks back to the very first day her parents threw her into the training academy. It had been a summer day in the middle of July, she being seven years old, her parents both failed Academy wannabes back when their hair wasn't gray and their cheeks not sundered in from years of smoking cigarettes, ambition digging its way into her mind, and her mother's fingernails pressing hard into her shoulder blades, a forceful reminder of what must be expected of her. Whenever she's introduced into any strangers that come over for parties and such, Maren Johnson is no longer _daughter, _but _opportunity for greatness, _the fingernails still ever pressed into her back. Her mother had been a tempest in her own special way, with her Aris-like sermons on glory and the need to pick up the mantlepieces that had been dropped by Johnson predecessors in time's past, but it had been her father early on who lashed the whip and kept his throat hoarse from all the screaming.

Paraded around like a trophy wife, a victor of the Hunger Games, the 103rd year, and now Maren finds herself volunteering two years earlier than expected, a whole lot less experience under her belt, with the next Narcissus looking over his mirror as her separation between life and death, all because a woman she shouldn't care about for what she has done to her over the years now needs money to cure a demon killing her from the inside out. She is not going to have all of this derailed by an immature brat with a size complex.

Something Aris says snaps her back out of the reverie, a much needed break given he is simply going on and on about ideas of grandeur and foolish expectations. "We're exactly alike, Maren, you and I."

A hard shudder passes through her, Maren gagging on the very idea. "We are nothing alike, Aris."

He smirks at her, that smirk holding the gleeful arrogance of a thousand and one King Midas's combined. "You can deny that all you want, Maren, to put yourself on some sort of pedestal, but we're not that much different than each other," he advances on her from his position in the living room, but she has nowhere to go, having pressed herself up against the counter. "We both are trained in the Academy, trained to be killers, in which I can certainly do what is needed when the time is right," his eyes sparkle, a venomous glance that causes her blood to turn to ice, like her skin is being pulled tightly down and sewn near her jaw bone. "You can pretend all you like, that you're better than me, but you're actually worse, volunteering early when clearly you aren't ready..." he has reached her by now, she wanting to leap out of her body like being in a lucid dream, if only to never return to her physical form. "Even though I want to lead the Careers, Maren, it won't matter in the end, as I'll be the one winning with or without your help or anyone else's," he finishes taunting her, he practically standing atop her, eyes glistening with a sudden fervor, life revitalized back into his soul.

Maren swallows heavily, like a rock splashing into her stomach acid, looking up at him, directly in the eye, her jaw trembling. She's... she's _nothing _like him, and the very conception on them being similar... Maren is disappointed that that he is able to somehow rip the good feelings she had been experiencing away from her like an IV stitched into her arm. "Your words are poison!" she spits out, but is a weaker insult than what he has just given her, but it is all she has, the well run dry, and her parents are both screaming at her again to find the perfectionist in her, to find the Johnson girl they know as the next victor, and not the Johnson girl who gives into the whims of bullies and arrogant pricks.

She wipes away at tears that are starting to form, pushing past Aris, her arm erupting in goosebumps as she comes into contact with the side of his chest, a hideousness crawling up and into her elbow, squeezing her eyes shut as she makes a direct march towards her room.

Perhaps he's right.

Perhaps Ellison is right.

Perhaps her parents wasted their time in trying to create the daughter that could be the envy of the district, a shining star in a sea of hopelessness, another name erected to the hall of Victory infamy.

Is she way in over her head?

Is Maren Johnson just another mediocre, soon to be forgotten name like all the other unopened reaping slips in those glass bowls?

* * *

**Alright everyone, that was Chapter #18: Oasis of Victory. I am so happy to have this done as I wanted to make sure I finished before 11 PM, and here it is at 11:58 when this will be getting posted, and I wanted to send off the New Year into 2020 with an update as I always seem to manage to do so. Next time I post, it'll be 2020!**

**Training scores have been revealed and are up, and I hope that you are all happy with what your tribute received based on what I wrote. Any that you were surprised by, expected, or were underwhelmed with? Let me know, I'm curious for your opinion! Also, on the physical tribute front, it seems that there is no lost love between Vivian and Rodric nor Aris and Maren, but that might've been known from the getgo, while Sage and Tach have made ventures into their own stories as well... what demons do you think Ciphra is battling?**

**Everyone else will have their povs spread out in the next three tribute chapters (20, 21, and 22 for reference), as next Chapter, #19: Mirage of Closeness, is going to return to the Capitol storyline, and then Chapter #20 is Interviews, which I am always excited for. Please review; I'd love to hear from you! Have a great day! Love you all! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	19. Mirage of Closeness (Capitol Plot III)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #19: A Mirage of Closeness, another update stop for the Capitol storyline, which is drawing ever so tighter, and I assure you, more will be on the rise. We're nearing the apex when the Games will take place and where our tributes will be fighting for their lives, and maybe even our Capitol cast on a different front. Last chapter, #18, was the revealing of the training scores and a whole lot of drama, which of course needs to be my subtext. Hope you enjoy Chapter #19: A Mirage of Closeness.**

**And before, I switch over, I just wanted to say thank you to all my readers, submitters, reviewers, and anyone who does so silently; Sheep Led to Slaughter, the prequel to this, won Best Story of 2019 and also received the award for Best Subplot, as the Capitol storyline had been, even though it is a whole other beast of its own than just a 'subplot', but I digress. Pollux even took it away with Best Interviewer, and Lewlyn had won Best Head Gamemaker! I hope Bombs and Bullets gets nominated in the 2020 awards, but who knows! I am so happy to be an SYOT writer; please enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, my waters will heal you, or they will hurt you, depending on which fountain you take a drink from._

_**Hale Cornerstone: Victor of the 87th Hunger Games P.O.V**_

* * *

Wounds. A bounty of wounds, all lining the arms and neck, the smokiness of his calves, the darkness that lines his cheeks, and mixing in that darkness, the crimson that is created from those wounds. Hale runs her hands over them as he winces, she biting down on her tongue, batting the tears away while her fingers are unsure of where to land in the dimness of her cell. The fetters are off of her ankles, and she's able to roam about however she pleases in the ten by ten foot space of her room, but nothing else. She runs a few fingers through Hector Merviere's unkempt hair, his face dark and caked with blood, Lazarus's latest beating having taken its toll, happening only a few moments ago before he had been thrown in Hale's cell, she cut free, and Lazarus slamming the jail cell closed in front of her very eyes, she unable to move or speak out of shock given that her brother in law has collapsed onto her floor. There's something scrunched up in the Head Peacekeeper's hand that Hale gets a minor glimpse of, but nothing more before the cell is slammed shut, it seeming like a paper flier.

She brings her attention back to Hector, a fellow victor, and someone she's known for fourteen years now, and to see him the way he is right now... it clogs her throat, all she being able to make is slight gasps. Hector falls back weakly against the cell wall, groaning lightly, he unable to lift his hands up to his head to wipe away some of the blood trickling down out of a head wound. Hale scoots herself closer to him, looking over at her fellow victor in shock, unsure what to do. There is nothing she can do, as her calls and cries are always unheard, no one ever comes running to them to help them after Lazarus does his nightly beatings. Hale flinches every time she hears his baton scrap against the bars on the doors, which hang near the bottom to hint that he is close. However, ever since his visit the first day during training, when she sees something take hold of him and then seemingly let go, he has yet to return, but she is not exactly praying on his return either.

"It... it was..." Hector tries saying, coughing, and Hale recoils with a gasp as a spot of blood appears on his hands, before falling back weakly once more, and it is as if the punches given sucked all of the life energy out of him. "I've never seen him so angry. He wouldn't stop shouting at me..." the victor shudders, wanting to curl up inwards on himself, but he doesn't.

"I heard the noise," Hale shakes her head, frowning, "But I couldn't make out a word he was saying..."

Hector sits up, but at a slow pace, groaning, holding a hand over his stomach. "Something about him wanting to know if I was contact with a group called The Phoenixes," he closes his eyes shut, exhaling heavily. "I had no idea what he was talking about, but saying I didn't know who or what it was only made him angrier..." Hale can physically feel him vibrating next to her, trembling under the duress, and there's an absolute look of terror on his face. He holds his head in his hands, still dripping out copper which has started to run into the grout between the tiles. "How do you people survive this, Hale? We've been in Bonnie's clutches for a week and a half and we're dying!"

She rubs a hand alongside his back, whispering soothing sweet nothings into his back, but she listens to his words, frowning. The Phoenix? Where has she heard that before? Who told her that? Someone had to tell her that directly, as there is no overhearing anything through the door, and besides Hector's screams and Lazarus's yelling fits while abusing said cellmate, there isn't anything else being passed between the rooms. Hale mutters the word to herself once, but then sinks back up against the wall alongside Hector. He inhales deeply, shaking slightly, she wrapping an arm around him. "We'll get through this, Hector."

"Will we?" he asks, his voice breaking like water on a rock.

Hale looks over at him, stunned for a second. He looks so much like Arizona, whenever she stares at him, and obviously, yes, she knows, given the fact that they're brothers - _were, _her mind once more corrects, _you're always forgetting that he's dead _\- and that Hector is older than her now late husband, it still strikes her hard. The way Hector's nose upturns, or how the dark shadows of the room, along with the fading blood against the side of his face, and those dark eyes, eyes that Hale can lose herself in forever, except she can't, since he's not- it's hopeless, and Hale looks away in shame, squeezing her eyes shut. Being trapped in a slate prison, a ten by ten for however long she'll be in here, all she has is her thoughts. These thoughts take turns of their own beating her upside the head, but she is confused as to why that is happening for _she _is the one thinking them up as this happens.

Hector and Arizona were different in more ways than one, Hale's learned, this thought passing by her again as she looks at him. Hector is more reserved, less likely to speak out of turn, less likely to cause a fight or get in trouble, hiding his sorrows in a barrel of brandy, scowling at other victors who are much less unsavory on the outside than he is, but that glare of his always seems to settle on Arizona, no matter who else the company. Hale fidgets with the end of her skirt, it being caked in dirt and dust and blood, but it might be hers or Hector's at this point, she isn't so sure. She's wanted to ask Lazarus, who she can't see fully with his face hidden behind that mask, like the coward he is, about why the two of them are being as beaten up as they are. Hale has been down here long enough, getting told so many times how villainous and awful that she is that she's starting to believe it herself. Maybe she did kill Calhoun. Maybe she's the reason her husband is gone... maybe-

_You stupid girl! _The voice in her head is screaming this at her, she jumping out of her skin, terrified, jolting in place some, Hector looking over at her, but his energy has been sapped away into the butt end of Lazarus's baton that cracks over his skull. She rubs at her face, but there isn't a sink to splash her face with water in the room, so her hands have to suffice. Hale looks at Hector again, frowning. Arizona had been a boisterous man, one where the rules had no limits - they got married against the physical law of the land, after all, what were they expecting? A dormouse? - in his head, and that he had been willing to go to the ends of the Earth for his family, to the point where his ends of the Earth came to a stop as a train going a hundred miles an hour barreled into him, turning him into paste.

"I think we will," Hale responds, her voice crack not going unnoticed, and when he looks over at her, there are tears in his eyes. She's never seen Hector cry, not once. She remembers watching his Games back over when she had just recently become a victor, the way he pushes the fighting kid from Four off of the cliff in his finale to become a victor, but when the kid survived the fall, Hector drives the blunt end of a spear into his back, right between the shoulder blades. Hale has to turn away from the screen when that happens; her district partner had died like that, in that exact manner, some sort of blunt object severing his spinal cord in a few places, he left like a vegetable on the ground before having an arrow to the skull knock him dead, and she watches from the bushes, paralyzed in her own fear.

Paralyzed in her own fear. She should've fought back when Bonnie tells the Peacekeepers to throw her husband in front of the train; she should've fought back against Kevia in the Mentor Center and have slit her throat then and there... her paralysis has left her like this, trapped in a Capitol prison for a guard with some sort of beating fetish and power complex getting off on hitting poor, defenseless souls who cannot protect themselves from the menace above; it's all her fault. Hale clenches her teeth together in a sneer.

"Winning the Games was easier than this," Hector sighs, slumping even further onto the floor.

Hale looks over at him, that frown still placated on her mouth. A twinge of remembrance flows through her, an actual warm feeling that is not Lazarus's body heat exuding on top of her from his excitement in the beatings, or the hot, muggy air of the Tribute Parade, but one of nostalgia, happiness. That's it. _Happiness. _The frown turns into a smile, she scooting closer to Hector. "Arizona said the same thing about us having kids," she says fondly.

Hector locks eyes with her, there being the small quip of a smile, a very faint one, and she's not sure the last time she's seen him smile. "I can totally picture him saying that. Elias and Arianne are a handful..."

"I miss them..." Hale whispers, staring off into the distance. She can see Arianne's smile perfectly, having her father's darker skin, a laugh that can cure any sort of sickened animal, and tall legs, she on the track to look like some sort of track star. Then there's Elias, with ripe blonde hair, despite she nor Arizona having blonde hair, and a joyous energy that knows no bounds. "I miss them so much," she scoffs lightly, but again, it isn't one full of viciousness or sadness, a happier one. "The first time Arizona realized he was a father was when Elias had found a dandelion in the field right behind that lake, and Arianne was teaching me something she learned in school. Elias blew the dandelion in Ari's face, and then Arianne couldn't fully do the yoga stand she was trying to teach me and he caught her in his arms," she smiles to herself, holding her arms tight to her chest. "Elias and Arianne were both laughing, smiling, and they called him the best father in the world."

"And you weren't considered the best mother?" Hector asks, aghast, and it would be a kind moment without the droplets of blood still trickling down his face, although it seemed the bleeding had stopped. Hale knew that wiping away the mess wouldn't do anything, her sleeves already coated in filth, and he riddling in filthiness is not exactly how she wants her brother-in-law to be living. "That's awful!"

Hale laughs, but it is a quick, short one, as if it is forbidden to express any sort of joy. "Arizona looked at both of them and told them how much he loved being their father," the warmth erupts into a volcanic eruption. "And then we kissed, which of course grossed them out."

Hector smiles too, but he doesn't say anything right away. There's a pause between the two of them, they synchronized in their breathing, matching likewise with one another, and Hale reaches out to grab his hand. He may not be her husband, but he is the closest of kin she has, and they're in this together, stuck in the long haul between the torture and the brutality of the Capitol that if she were to let go him, she'd be lost. Hector wipes at his forehead, smearing the blood coming out of the wound just above his right ear. "Where do you think Elias and Arianne are now? I know that they were on the train platform and, well..." his voice hangs in the air, for what occupies the air after that is the sound of impact, and all the screaming, and in the midst of it all, Bonnie laughing to herself, _laughing _as she rips a family apart.

She thinks back to Kevia's visit, just two days ago, and all of the information that is brought to her, where she believes the District One victor is visiting out of spite and not for a beacon of light at the end of the tunnel. "Kevia came by two days ago, and she wanted to let me know that Elias and Arianne were in the mansion with Bonnie, apparently being tutored and being told lies about where Ari and I were," Hale pauses, as tears begin to prickle at the corners of her eyes, she sitting up even further. "Kevia then told me that someone named the Phoe..." she stops talking, her words trailing off into oblivion, and Hale sits forward off of the wall as if she had been stabbed in between the shoulder blades, looking over at Hector with wide eyes.

He looks back at her in alarm, raising an eyebrow. "What, Hale?"

"What was it that Lazarus had been shouting at you about?"

Hector sits up likewise, the energy flowing between them, underneath the creaking of the rusty swinging light, the golden beam passing over their faces every few seconds, highlighting the sparkle in her eyes. "He wanted to know my involvement with something or someone called The Phoenix..."

Hale grins to herself, heart hammering in her chest. "Kevia told me that Rennie was going by that name, Lewlyn's Avox brother, in a campaign to get Bonnie out of office and to clear our names..." she scoots over to Hector, taking his hands in hers, and they're both sharing the body heat, the energy of the room, electricity crackling between them, sparks igniting.

His eyes widen likewise, and a look of hope spreads across his face, a vast comparison to the sulking, the dourness, the sourness that ebbs in and out like a cycle of blood to the heart. "If Lazarus is wondering about our involvement with a group _we _don't know about, but they think we do-"

"Then that means they actually exist," she finishes for him, a grin spreading across her face. "That means there's a chance. A chance for freedom."

* * *

**_Lazarus Pietro: Head Peacekeeper P.O.V_**

* * *

Ever since he had been a little boy - well, actually around eleven or twelve, so perhaps not so little - his eyes are flooded with the image of royalty, of happiness, jewels and wealth beyond count and imagination pouring into his hands, and he outpouring that same love into the nobility ruling before he and the rest of the onlookers. That meant kissing the feet of those who walked by with higher power, desiring for what they had, for what they could achieve with the measly talents handed to them by some sort of deity above, and Lazarus's eyes have never taken themselves off of the prize. In his middle teenage years, when Calhoun ascended to the presidency after an election that is extremely one-sided in his favor, due to the gorgeous looks and affable personality, and having a beautiful wife to bolster the ratings no doubt, Lazarus's heart is snagged immediately.

He is not so sure if he had been in love with Calhoun or the _idea _of Calhoun, that the Rodney presidency had been the standard image of opulence and manners and exquisite taste, the desirable symbol for nobility and royalty that Lazarus spots at eleven years old when Coriolanus Snow addresses an onlooking crowd, decorated in velvet and jewels, as the District 12 victors Katniss and Peeta were having their victory tour stop in the Capitol. From that moment forward, locking eyes with Calhoun, Lazarus back in his house, the newly elected president on the balcony overlooking the avenue where the Tribute Parade takes place, it is decided that he'll do whatever it takes to get there, to get that man and his lips and to be _him, _to be with him, perhaps to the point of obsession, but Lazarus knows he doesn't have an obsession with the Rodney family. Obsessions are unhealthy, and he is in perfectly good condition.

Lazarus makes his way over to the presidential mansion, which is only just under a quarter mile away from the underground prison cells, the baton he used to beat Hector Merviere with still attached to his belt, dripping blood onto the concrete as he walks, he looking down at the splatters with disgust. Traitorous blood, even when locked away a mile beneath the surface, still finds a way to taint the land ever so, as if the scoundrels possess magical abilities. He'll keep the baton on him when he storms into Bonnie's office so she is not diseased with the vileness of a district citizen.

_But aren't you from District Two?_

He ignores that thought, just like he ignores the burning in his stomach that used to tell him the way he viewed President Calhoun as an inhumane concept, a disgusting ideal not to be held up on a pedestal, but that had been the way he's raised, the way District Two operates in certain parts, and he sees plenty of it when pushing forward into the Peacekeeper Academy, doing so well on his marks and his physicality exams - granted, he had been pushing for a goal of getting to see Calhoun firsthand, to hold the man's hand, to gently press him down onto a mattress - that he is sent straight to the Capitol Peacekeeper Academy at sixteen, exempted from being drawn in a reaping bowl with three years left to be had, and it is the most joyous moment of his life. There's been other people in his life, women with names he's long forgotten, that have tried before, but he had his mind solely focused on the commander in chief, and at him only, no one else being suitable for the job. The suitability is all that matters, it motivating every action he makes.

The Head Peacekeeper enters through the mansion side entrance, paging one of the secretaries on Bonnie's whereabouts, and instead of being directed to the left like normal, which would be the direction of her office, he is sent to the right. He's never been on this side of the mansion, this being the full living quarters, like the nursery, the movie theater, the kitchen, and the Rodney bedroom. Lazarus's heart beats in his chest like a hammer striking an anvil as he steps over the threshold, led by an Avox who, as always, wordlessly leads him on. He's seen the oak floors several times in other rooms of the house, but since only Bonnie, and now the late Calhoun, usually walks this side of the mansion, the floors are left untouched, in ripe condition, gleaming in the fresh sun. Lazarus tries not to think of the darkness clenched in his hands, something that the bitch from Two sees when he throws Hector into her cell, only because he had been tired of having both of them on separate occasions constantly prattling him to see one another.

The Avox leads Lazarus past the bedroom and off into a hallway, a crook kept out of the way, and when he fully rounds the corner, he opens his mouth to speak, expecting a closet of some kind, but instead it dies in his throat with a frog croak. "Madam President, I-" and he chokes on his saliva while the Avox seems to flee for their life.

Bonnie looks over at him from her position in the tub, she submerged underneath the water, a liquidous gold color - a pang runs through Lazarus, as that had been the color of the water when he found the old Head Gamemaker, Lewlyn Davis, dead, throat slit open like wrapping paper for a Christmas gift - that floated up to and covered her breasts, arms milling through the foam that has begun to pile up in the center. The bathroom is divine, and Lazarus is melting in all of the beauty he's surrounded in, from the granite countertops holding platinum sinks, and the way the tub seems to shine like stained glass, amaranthine light spilling onto the tile floor, lighting up Lazarus's normally dark boots with a more suave, violet shadow. Bonnie lifts her eyebrows up, and then slowly lowers them, more than likely not expecting to be interrupted in a moment of privacy, despite the door being wide open.

"Hello, Mr. Pietro," she greets him, as if this is nothing out of the ordinary at all, but Lazarus frowns. She's called him by his formal title, and not his first name. He's unsure why there is a discrepancy, as sometimes he's greeted as _Lazarus, _normally on a phone call, but then there are times when a brusqueness is applied to their meetings, an iciness that is totally undeserved, as all Lazarus has done is serve her and Calhoun faithfully against anyone who'd wish to destroy such a beautiful family. "Can I help you with something?"

"Something of urgency has come to my attention and-"

"It surely can't wait?" Bonnie interrupts him, as if she hadn't just asked him a question, he biting down on his tongue in the manner of pausing. "As you can see, I'm indisposed."

He shakes his head back and forth, a lump building in his throat. "No, _Bonnie,_" he sees that the usage of her first name does not go unnoticed, the way she lifts her arms out of the bubbles and setting them on the sides of the tub, muscles taut and tense, her eyes a sharp jade, mouth kept at slight. "It can't wait," and he unclenches his fist that had been holding onto the crumpled piece of paper he had been holding. He is doing surveillance of the Economic Capitol district, where the lowest of the lowly Capitol citizens live, still surrounded in grandeur, often times the location of homes for Peacekeepers not from the Capitol, when he is alerted to a traitor, another Peacekeeper comrade from District Two that he knows, just a few doors down from his physical location. When he arrives, the thing in his hand floats out, into his grasp, and he has to shoot the Peacekeeper straight between the eyes with his gun to make sure it is serious.

Bonnie's gaze locks to his hand, she swallowing heavily. "What... what is that?"

Lazarus hands it over to her, and then takes a few steps back from the bathtub just in case she decides to unleash some of her rage, and he's seen a few instances of it in the last couple of weeks, it not being a pleasant experience. "It had been in the hands of a fellow Peacekeeper, and there are apparently others as well." The president looks over it, surveying the rather tiny piece of paper, but it doesn't take long before she gasps, and it falls out of her hands, into the tub, soaking up the water. She looks back at him, mouth agape, eyes wide and in fright, he nodding his head. "I know. Apparently there are five other variations out there, among Capitol citizens, and maybe even in the districts."

He has never seen her look so unnerved as she does now. What is floating face down in the pool is an ad, as it is what falls into Lazarus's hand via the wind, of the Master of Ceremonies face, Pollux Aetos dead set and center on a fiery background, the portrait set around a golden circle emblazoned with the words _The Phoenix Rises. Join the rebellion; take down Bonnie Rodney! _He has no idea how many are there, but once Lazarus reads it, he storms into the fellow Peacekeeper's house, he already forced down to his knees, handcuffed behind his back, helmet removed, punched across the face with a bruise settling there nicely, and he grabs the guy by the lapel of his undershirt, forcing him back to his feet.

_"What is this? Where did you get this?" Lazarus roars in the man's face._

_He is winced at, for the outburst, but the guy doesn't answer him. Lazarus drops the converted traitor back onto his knees, pulls out his gun, and without hesitation, shoots him straight in the head, the ricochet of the bullet echoing in his heart, and he watches until the last of the vermillion has spilled out of the wound. It is automatic, then, when he goes marching towards the underground prison, for surely this is some conjurer trick, that scoundrel Hector Merviere must've done something, had an ally in the shadows that he couldn't see... there's no way! There's no way!_

"How many do you think there are?" Bonnie asks, after a moment. "How do you think the person you found this on got it?"

"He didn't say, Madam President. And to how many there are, who knows."

She locks her jaw, and then without preamble, Bonnie gets out of the tub, water sloshing out onto the floor and on Lazarus's boots. His eyes widen, looking away as quick as he can when she rights herself in the water, catching just a slight glimpse of her naked body, a feeling of revulsion rising in his throat, but it would be entirely uncouth and unprofessional for him to have bile appear all over the tiled floor. There are so many words he can use to describe how inappropriate Bonnie's actions had just been, but he prefers to be alive for the time being. The president steps fully out of the tub, completely naked, still covered in suds, reaching for the towel hanging just a few inches off the rack, wrapping it around back up to cover herself again. Lazarus breaths a sigh of relief, for that means the torture is over.

"Join the rebellion..." Bonnie exhales, her voice barely rising above a whisper, she looking off into the distance with a thousand yard stare. She shakes her head, biting on her lip. "I had wanted to believe it not true..."

"You know what this means, don't you?"

She looks at him, frowning. "I don't know..." the president shakes her head. "I don't know," and then she pauses, eyebrows lifting up once more as a look of realization passes her face, but this time a darkness highlights itself in her eyes, once that does not go unnoticed for Lazarus. "It means one of three things, Lazarus," Of course, now they're back to the first name basis; of course they are! "Someone could be trying to make it seem like there's a rebellion when there actually isn't one, Rennie is actually leading a rebellion and framing Pollux in it, or Pollux has actually joined a rebellion against me," she sinks up against the counter while she watches the tub drain. "I don't know which sounds worse..."

Lazarus shifts uneasily in his spot, biting on his lip. He hasn't heard her actually say his name, the Avox shall not be named, in quite some time, but perhaps drastic times call for drastic measures; he's not too sure. "There's more, Bonnie."

The look of hesitancy in her eyes is replaced with fear, and the temperature of the bathroom drops another five or so degrees, he feeling the prickliness underneath the uniform. "More, Lazarus? What do you mean, more?"

"More fliers... more ads..." He wishes it wasn't true, Lazarus wishes it with every fiber of his being, to having the Rodney administration be kept from harm, but he is only one man, he is only one guy and he is not about to jeopardize his future all because of one person, some upstart without a tongue crying for freedom on the battlements, for his voice will never be heard. Bonnie turns away from Lazarus, walking over to the towel rack, there being one for her feet that she grabs at. "I've been told, and I'm not sure if this is just mere speculation or truth that some of the faces on them are of several victors..." she doesn't say anything, she simply nodding at him so he could continue. Lazarus's mouth is as dry as a desert when he swallows. "Reports say there is also Criston Pellock of District 6, Lance Viel of District 1, Hector Merviere of District 10, Hale Cornerstone of District 2, Kevia Janelle of District 1," he notices that Bonnie freezes in her motions of drying off of her feet. Lazarus swallows again, for it is the next name that'll have her rip the towel rack off of the wall and chuck it at him. "And lastly Valencia Shale, also of District 1..."

Bonnie turns around to look at him, and he is taken aback at the fact that there are tears, _tears _in her eyes. He's never even seen her cry. "No..." she whispers, fingers digging into the cloth of towel. "No, that's- that's impossible," and she shakes her head back and forth. "Valencia would never, she- she's too much like me, I'm a-" and Bonnie rests her head on the bathroom counter, pounding it with a fist. "There's no _fucking _way!"

He takes another step back out of the zone of rage, as Bonnie pounds the sink with her fists a few more times, lifting her head, cheeks burning red. "We need to respond immediately, Madam President, whether it is a ruse or not," he crosses his arms over the other, righting his posture. "I suggest rounding those on the fliers up and torturing them until we get an answer."

"No!" she shouts, rather unexpectedly, Lazarus bristling some in his place, and the president wrenches her gaze over at him. "I won't get the answers I need if I simply kill them all..." she taps her fingers on the counter up near the sink. "I need to draw them all out in the open, simply, plainly, and then I'll strike, and I'll need collateral..." at this point, Bonnie is practically speaking to herself, but he can hear her over the din of the bathroom fan.

"It's the Interviews tonight. Should we interrupt them and not-"

He does not get much farther into the question before Bonnie shoots him a withering glare. "Lazarus, I cannot just delay the Hunger Games because of some Capitol upstarts and entitled brats..." she rubs her exposed arm, rubbing it so hard he's afraid she'll take the skin off in one quick swipe. "We'll do it after the Interviews, around one in the morning, okay? I want you and Constantine by my side, and if anything funny happens, we'll flip the switch."

A chill runs through Lazarus's body, but he only nods in recognition of what she said. Orders are orders after all, and he is a good soldier in the eyes of the Capitol, following all the orders given to him. "Yes, Madam President, I agree," and then in his head, "_Of course you agree, you_ _coward!_"

Bonnie tightens the towel around her waist more, turning to face the bathtub, and she stands still, on the bathmat for a moment, one finger pressed up against her chin, as if she is pondering something. "You know, Lazarus, I was the one who found Lewlyn Davis dead," and he nods at the statement, as she's the one who sends him the panicked phone call, she out of breath and terrified, covered in the woman's blood. "I'm the one who found her dead, in her own bathtub, throat slit wide open..." and Bonnie gestures to her own bathroom appliance. "She thought she was safe in her own home before those victors murdered her in cold blood..." Bonnie's hands curl into fists. "If Arizona and Hale murdered Lewlyn purely out of their marriage being discovered, what do you think I'll do to the people who wish to tear down this nation and those who built in?"

He shrugs his shoulders, as he knows what answer he'll get, but he simply wants to hear it. He wants to hear it all. "What will you do, Madam President?"

She lifts her head up some, eyes shimmering with lust and power. "Anything and everything, Mr. Pietro, anything and everything."

Although Lazarus knows that he is not attracted to Bonnie in the way she probably thinks he is, he would be calling himself a liar if he did not believe or feel the very strength ebb off of her, the way it does as she says this, his heart beating loudly in his chest once more, and the idea of the Phoenix, that stupid bird, being snuffed out for good.

It is the greatest feeling in the world.

* * *

**_Rennie Davis: The Phoenix P.O.V_**

* * *

There are simply certain things in the world that are out of his control, a realization that Rennie Davis has had a hard time coming to terms with. He is currently staring at one in the face, as Pollux Aetos slams a piece of paper down onto the table separating them, a look of worry on his face. "We lost another two supporters today, Rennie," and the Interviewer pushes the piece of paper closer to him, he taking it up off of the wooden surface. The face of two murdered Peacekeepers look back at him, but he simply places the paper aside, keeping his expression as poker faced as possible. Pollux gasps lightly in surprise at the reaction, his look of shock turning into anger as he frowns viciously. "Rennie! Nothing? You feel nothing? They just died supporting you and we're hiding underground and-"

He puts a hand up, silencing the Master of Ceremonies, and then signs with his other hand. "_Of course I care, Pollux. I am upset that they're dead, but I cannot let it get to me,_" and Pollux's lips soften up some into a more lax expression. The two of them are down underground, in the same vein as the underground prison, on the entire opposite side of the city, directly underneath the economic district, a place Rennie now knows quite well. He has been down here for the last week, in a supply room eating dry, stale peanuts amid a sea of foam and plastic, drinking expired bottles of water that have long since lost their cold touch, and he's sure he has contracted cholera from the sleeping bag he's in, but it is this section of the underground that he has turned into his domain, into his realm.

Pollux has not been his only visitor, the other victors he has managed to sway onto his side, some much easier than others, also dropping by for a visit. The spot had originally been a Peacekeeper station during the Dark Days, kept out of sight in case a nuclear strike from District Thirteen had left everything up on the surface reduced to nothing but radioactive rubble, and although a good bit of the machinery is outdated, it still works, but he has yet to dare keep it on for more than a few moments at a time, for it'll surely warn the above ground Peacekeepers stations of its existence, for everyone has written it off as being a useless sector of junk. He's been down in the shadows, waiting out the storm, while Bonnie and her band of blizzard goons heralded by that idiot Lazarus Pietro storm the city gates, wrenching people from their homes, interrogating them on the Avox's disappearance, but of course no one knows where he is; he's been an enigma this entire time, an enigma his whole life.

"How many people need to die before we act, Rennie?" Pollux asks.

Rennie blanches at the question, frowning to himself. He's not sure if he has an answer to that. It hadn't been his initial intention on anyone except his oppressors, or rather _Panem's _oppressors being those harmed. However, as he had heard from someone else before him, losses were inevitable. It is Pollux's idea after all to create the pamphlets and give them to the ones browbeaten by the Capitol bullies, yet he looks at the aftermath of his decisions dead in the face, and the lump in his throat returns. There are another seven types of pamphlets currently circulating the Capitol space, and it had been only a matter of time before someone would find them, but it looks like Head Peacekeeper Lazarus has gotten to it instead, and Rennie knows for sure where the man, who wants to be such a little obedient dog went running straight to, to receive that pat on the head and the sweet little kiss... it makes him want to throw up.

"Rennie?" Pollux presses the question again, leaning forward some over the circular table, it being a three-layered piece of machinery showing the three levels of the Capitol, the aboveground, the Peacekeeper network, and the sewers, and there is no way he is going to walking beneath the sewers. He absentmindedly traces a finger down one of the pathways that leads out to the ocean, a mile long tunnel covered in moss and other sorts of overgrown plants, a spacious, verdant green jungle that reaches the peak of civilization to the sea, and if anything is go extremely south, that is his escape route. Also in the abandoned station where Rennie has decided to set up camp is a fully armored barracks, forgotten to the wind, but fully armed and loaded... he has much more at his disposal than he thinks.

He signs back his answer to Pollux's question. "_You have to ask yourself how much sacrifice is too little too late..."_

The Interviewer takes a step back, gasping to himself, a hand going to his throat. "Rennie..." Pollux says breathlessly, a look of horror replacing the inquisitiveness in his eyes. Rennie doesn't know what the big deal is, especially since Pollux has been interviewing, and _has _to interview tonight, sets of tributes being shipped off to die, for a hundred and one years this has happened, yet all the man can think about is what the collateral will be elsewhere... that is not his concern, nor his focus. His focus is on the vampire sitting in the window, eyes wide, mouth gaping open, fangs prepped to slice an unsuspecting victim in the throat, and he has his harpoon ready, prepared to fire. Rennie wants to watch the Capitol burn, to see the platinum painted city crash into a billion pieces, left behind as ruins and ashes for the districts to dance in. He had once been in love with the city, with the crowds wishing to hear the famous Davis violinist play for sold out crowds and auditoriums.

This is not the same city any longer, the city that did not mourn him when his sister rips him out of bed at night, pincers in hand, the blade that sliced his tongue away from the rest of his body. This is not the same city that tried fighting for his freedom, as no one showed up to protest in his occupation, it had been a TV reel for maybe a night or two, but then the world had moved on to lilac curtains and fabrics smelling of iodine and pearls... unless the problem had been staring at them directly in the face, they were not going to move, and he was going to make them move whether they wanted to or not.

He rubs his forehead, starting to sweat, as the pipes are not fully airconditioned, and he's sure he's lost about five or six percent of his body weight just from sweating it all away, to the point where he can count his ribs. "_You want Bonnie gone, right? You want the Hunger Games to be abolished forever, correct?"_

Pollux nods feverishly. "Of course I do. I had shown you the polling data," the polling data from Bonnie's questionare makes him laugh out loud, that the Capitol populace and Careers from One, Two, and Four did not feel the same wamrth and love the vampire says she's exuding, givign off the heat of a volcano to the sun, where her efforts are for naught, as Rennie scampers in the shadows, collecting allies from every corner of the city, the outreach splurging into the districts, and he has his eyes set directly on the tributes as well... they can all prove to be useful in some capacity, but he has yet to think about what that capacity could entail, and let alone how he could even get to them, what with the twenty-four being trapped inside of an arena tomorrow morning.

"_Then that means we need to put our everything into seeing the chance happen," _he signs back, Pollux sighing to himself reservedly. "_That means there is no sacrifice that is too great._"

The Interviewer lifts up the picture of the two dead Peacekeepers, pointing at them fiercely. "Tell that to them, Rennie! Bonnie knows about us, and that means she knows about all of the victors too! You think that's going to stop her? She knows about us," he slams the picture back onto the table, sneering. "We need to act now! We need to act before she snuffs out like rats and kills us all!"

The ex-Avox listens partially to what Pollux is rambling on about, turning to look behind him at what is resting on the center command console. He signs with his free hand, grabbing the package, of which there are now several, all bundled up the same way. "_I am ready to act, I just need the right time._"

Pollux is not paying attention, he looking down at his feet, pinching his brow, eyes closed. "I have to go get ready for Interviews and hope that Bonnie doesn't execute me for treason," and when he opens them, Rennie has brought the wrapped item back to the forefront, laying it on the table. "What's that?" he asks timidly, pointing at it, and Rennie sees that the man is shaking, causing him to scoff. How can he expect this Capitol flower to actually be willing to fight in a real war?

Rennie smiles to himself, a surge of overwhelming pride rising in his stomach, as this is the greatest gift mankind has ever been given, and it has been given by another human. He presses both of Criston Pellock's packages side by side, the packages the victor from District 6 had given Lance Viel, screaming at him to not open them. He unwraps the first one, and Pollux's eyes widen again, but this time he does not utter a sound. Rennie locks eyes with him, a fiery glow replacing his general demure look. The world is his oyster, and he is ready to shuck it until there's nothing left, nothing left for anyone to ever corrupt again, and that may mean he needs to protect the world from his own corruption. He still has yet to answer his companion's question, the look of worry on Pollux's face increasing ever so slightly.

"Rennie," he asks, voice set with a hint of solid stone, "What _is that?_"

"_This, my friend, is change. This, my friend,_" his grin grows ever the larger, "_Is Death._"

* * *

**Alrighty everyone, that was Chapter #19: A Mirage of Closeness, the next leg of our Capitol journey, where, yes, indeed ladies and gents, things have hightailed it to eleven. Everything is rushing towards the center all at once, and I hope you are able to keep track of it all as I am throwing everything I have into this and the tribute storyline. Hale and Hector have gotten their reunification moment, Bonnie has been made aware of the cards set on the table now, and Rennie has devised a solution... bringing Death into the world, Death to the Capitol... and at this moment, my blood chills.**

**Next chapter, #20, Spotlight Hour, is going to focus on the Interviews with eight POV's in total - yes, that means not everyone is getting an Interview - but it doesn't mean the chapter will be by any means short, as Slaughter's interviews was 12k, this will be at least 12k or more with how I have things divvied up. I am so excited for the next spot of this story, as we are almost there. Please review, it means a lot to me and I appreciate all the support and feedback I get on the daily. Another huge thank you to anyone who nominated / voted for Sheep Led to Slaughter in the SYOT Awards, it means so much to me, and I hope Bombs and Bullets can do that too! I am aiming to have the Interviews done no later than by January 22nd, so keep your eyes peeled. Love you all! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	20. Spotlight Hour (Interviews)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #20: Spotlight Hour, and drum roll ladies and gents *rolls drum as everyone watches* tonight is Interviews! That's right, we've reached the Interview stage, one of my favorite, most definitely favorite aspects of any SYOT. Last chapter we looked through the eyes of the Capitol characters again and there have been some plot advancements afoot with Rennie, Bonnie, and the others but that isn't important. This chapter will have eight POV's (yes, you read that right), but I do go over everyone's interview despite not everyone having a POV so don't worry, everyone's shining bright, I swear. I am really excited to get these next three tribute chapters underway, more than you know actually, so please, enjoy Chapter #20: Spotlight Hour.**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, if you are to hog the spotlight, you better get used to the way it'll scorch your skin alive, as if the fires of Hell were grabbing you and pulling you under_

**_Cyril Barther: District 1 Male P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

For living in District One, Cyril has always found him to be among, as if that is even possible, now that he's seen the Capitol, to be among the most vain people in the history of mankind. That may be a stretch, but Cyril swears it, from his mother running a beauty salon, he seeing the people come and go that visit their homely abode that is not his father's Victors Village house - he hasn't stepped inside that house in years - with their outlandish hair styles and eye colors, such as mocking a peacock's plumage, or bat wings stretching out of the side of a man's head as he found his sideburns to be too short. Cyril knows that there isn't anything his mother could do to fix him, especially his speckled face, but the stylists are trying their best, after all.

Kevia watches him, as he stands on one of the pedestals in the center of his changing room, arms outstretched as a member of his prep team - Cyril isn't sure if her name is Deli or Meli, but he's not about to call her the name of a sandwich shop - takes a lint roller down the fabric, a deep and suave gorgeous crimson colored jacket, the inside a lining of solid black, and he hasn't felt this hot in ages. Although Kevia would normally be with Satin, as he'd have his father in the room, his father has decided to, once again, take to a vodka tonic and lounge out in the audience, definitely not awake. Lance stops by and sees the District 10 tributes first, and then decides to swap places with Kevia, only because Cyril doesn't want to talk to Lance since their spat on the train. He feels like a million bucks, but unless those million bucks allow him to win the Games, he's not so certain feeling amazing at this moment in time will actually do anything for him.

He feels the victor's eyes searching over him, a seafarer's scope traversing rocky waters - get to close to the acne, and they'll tear the hull straight off - and then they settle on his chin, the one part his prep team couldn't fully cover up. Cyril sighs, as another member of the team goes and straightens out the shaved off sides of his head, leaving the dusty mop of curls up top. "I already know what you'll ask," he says, rather resignedly, for whatever question is about to come spilling out of the victor's mouth is one he's heard thousands and thousands of times beforehand, a majority of them being from his mother.

"The scars..." Kevia starts her question anyways, no matter what he says, she having a hand placed on her own chin, perhaps a sign of absentmindedness. "How did you get them all? And so many?" She steps closer, up to him, out of the fringes of the room where she had been blending in with the curtains, and although Cyril tries backing away from her, he doesn't wish to fall off of the pedestal is on. He scrunches up his nose as Kevia traces one with her left pointer finger like it is a smudge of makeup to be wiped off. "That one is particularly nasty..." She balances the glass of some sort of alcohol in her other hand, because he has yet to see her without a drink either, yet somehow Emmett is the one with the drinking problem.

"The same way I got all of these, actually," Cyril responds, showing off his arms, pale in the moonlight shining down from above, the room he is in being a glass cage with the Capitol brightness flooding in. "All from falls or slips in the Academy," and then, begrudgingly, "Yeah, some were caused by weapons."

"And you're one of our best hopes for a victor?" Kevia snorts to herself. "Being scarred by a training weapon..."

He shrugs, not sure how to feel about her comment, whether it is an insult or not. It had been hard enough kicking everyone's ass to get to the spot he's in, and to have someone who has physically brought him up on this journey say that? The stab wound to his heart could spill blood all over his outfit and he still wouldn't know about it. "You're one of the people who decided I _was _good enough, y'know. It's on you and Lance if I don't win." Perhaps she's drunk. She has to be, as it is late enough in the evening, nearing just about 9 PM, when the Interviews officially start with Mr. Pollux Aetos himself.

"I'm kidding," she smiles at him, but he shudders at the look. He's watched her Games before, the 84th year, and those had been a bloodbath, as Kevia takes down, or at least helps with taking down, nine lives in the arena, at eighteen years old with vivacious blonde hair, that same smile she is giving him now, and a dagger doing all of her dirty work, stabbing, stabbing, _stabbing... _he hopes she'll excuse him when he doesn't believe her if she's kidding or not. Kevia walks around him, surveying him, as if he needs to feel anymore insecure about tonight. Cyril's heart rises in hope when he is the first score out of the gate and gets a _10, _as it's better than Marcus Pharadane from last year, and then when Satin and Aris, who he assumed would get a score just like his if not higher are lesser than that, he feels as if it is about to solidified... he'll lead the Careers, something he had out of his mind as an impossibility, but the closer it crept up, the more possible it seemed.

And then Jules Harper comes out with an eleven, and two outsider tributes from Six and Twelve score higher than him, causing Satin to go on a cussing spiel rant, and that's that after Bloom's face vanishes into the black screen, confidence entirely crushed. Amaris has already said no to their offer, something about pride and her being better than everyone, which has him laughing, as she'd get along with Aris like peas in a pod. Cambric seems to be the type of guy expressing pure disinterest in wanting to join the Careers - he has to remember that to everyone else, from the outside looking in, he and the others are freakish, with their barbarianism - and he is not inviting Vanya into an alliance, the guy dripping with more ego than Satin, Aris, and Amaris combined. He smells it on the District 11 dancer, like honey being out in the sun for too long, scorched and hardening, hard candy stuck in someone's teeth.

However, there's someone else, someone else he's been watching, and with her Ten too... it has him raise an eyebrow by his lonesome after Satin goes away, cussing to herself about cheated opportunities and the like.

"I've been thinking," Cyril announces, rather out of the blue.

Kevia finishes looking over at him, and there's a rather pleasant look to her disposition, she swirling around the enigmatic materials in her glass. "You look great, for once," she smirks, and then she catches onto what he had just said, eyebrows coming together. "You, thinking? That's a dangerous thought."

"I'm serious." He resists the urge to stomp his foot like a petulant child, as if that'd be any more reason to give Kevia more ammunition in mocking him. He knows the way the other Careers minus Maren have looked at him since arriving in the Capitol, as if he's second rate, lower than all of them, not as prepared, but he supposes that scoring a 10 shuts everyone else up, and that the crow does not taste delightful after they finish swallowing it.

She takes a sip of her drink, leaning back against the wall. "Alright, Cyril, I'll bite," he goes to open his mouth and answer, but she cuts him off. "Wait a minute. Is this about allies?" He nods his head, wordlessly, perhaps she being able to read it on his face. Kevia peels herself back off of the curtains, looking slightly perturbed about that. "Without saying who it is, show me a number of fingers to what district." Cyril frowns, confused about the oddity of the exercise, but complies, showing up both hands with counts of five. _Ten. District 10. _Kevia takes a deep breath, and a long, _long _sip of her drink. "Cyril, do you remember what happened to the Careers last time they added a new alliance member from District 10?" She doesn't give him time to respond to this. "It ended in disaster."

"With Valencia as a victor, though," Cyril points out.

"Who is it?"

"The girl, Vivian Whiplash," he answers, and for a second, he pictures her perfectly. Lithe frame, deadly gaze, that sick ass sounding name... Cyril is impressed watching her brawl in the fighting ring while he's practicing weaponry, and approaches Aris about the possibility of having her join, just a thought, but his fellow Career from Two sniffs the air disdainfully, not in the mood. "She scored just like I did, too, and did better than Aris, Satin, and Maren. She has to be good."

Kevia crosses her arms over the other, raising an eyebrow, looking at Cyril directly in the eyes. He's seen that look before, he's seen that look hundreds of times, the judgmental feel. It is the one where his decisions are dragged in the dirt like a recently killed rabbit to be sent to the black market, picked and plucked until nothing remains except a carcass of what used to be something beautiful, now sold for extortion. "Anyone else know about this idea of yours yet? Did you tell Satin?"

He shakes his head in dissent. Why does anyone else have to know his decisions? "Not yet."

"You think they'll accept?"

"It's Jules's decision technically, since he's the highest scorer," Cyril says. Although he finds the male from Four to be a bit prudish, decadent, over-the-top, and somehow, extremely skilled in combat, there is a genuine likability to the kid, so perhaps he'll take the idea better than Satin would, especially on the grounds of female competition. "He strikes me as being more warm to the concept."

Kevia smirks to herself, taking the last sip out of her drink with a satisfying gasp, and she recedes back into the violet curtains, wrapping them around her midriff. "There's another reason why you want her in the alliance, don't you?" Kevia plucks the olive off of the straw, throwing it in her mouth.

Well, how in the hell did he read that off of his face? She just had to go and pull out the big guns, huh? "Yeah..." Cyril trails off, his face rising slightly in heat as his cheeks begin to burn. His prep team member finishes swiping the lint roller across his arms and pants, and Cyril Barther is show ready!

His fellow mentor sets the glass down on the ground, careful not to kick it over. "You think she's cute, don't you?"

Cyril wouldn't say _cute, _he'd use a different word, but saying it out loud feels like he's spewing hot sauce everywhere, which again, would still blend in on his suit.

Perhaps wanting her in the alliance won't be a simple as he thinks it could be.

Wouldn't hurt to ask, right?

* * *

**_Anahita Cascade: District 4 Female P.O.V (13)_**

* * *

Just because she is thirteen does not mean she has to be dressed up like some little princess. Anahita clenches onto the frills of her dress, looking down at them with a frown, she drowning - distasteful pun is distasteful, but she digresses - in a plethora of cerulean fabric, done so to look like the spreading waves of the ocean, her dark skin brought up by the navy shades that dance to mid arm, a flowing tide crashing in onto a stony shore, blue flecks of glitter applied just around her eyes, a seashell placed in her hair, and she wants to rip it out of her head as the damned thing smells. However, she knows that the moment she does, some Peacekeeper is going to tackle her to the ground, pull out a few inches of her scalp, and then place the seashell back in it. Better yet, a sand dollar will go there so it can piss all over her head, just so the Capitol can have the last laugh.

She steps out into the hallway for all of the tributes to line up, and with a saddening pit burrowing further into the gaping hole that is her stomach, Anahita realizes that she's the last of the Careers - _wait, that's right sweetheart, you aren't a Career cause you're too young - _to be finished with the Interview preparations, but she's still much earlier than plenty of the other tributes, there only being a few stragglers such as the weird science pair from District 3, the timid girl from Five who is off in her own corner, and the Capitol peacock from Eleven, dressed glamorously in some sort of platinum sheen thing, showing off his calve muscles, but he's off by himself as well while the boy and girl from Three speak to one another in hushed voices all the way up at the front of the line.

The other Careers are huddled together in a circle, Cyril and Jules having their backs to her, while she assumes the others are on the opposite side, and although she can't fully hear them, their voices seem to start rising over one another. Anahita frowns, wanting to step closer, but she remembers what she had been told a few days ago... they don't want her, they don't have a use for her, and she's the lowest scorer. However, something comes up the moment the scores are announced, she looking over at Jules and his maddening grin, with the _11 _flashing underneath his name... he's the leader of the Careers, and now Cyril is the 2nd highest score, someone who has said to her already... the gears turn, smoke pours out of her ears, and Anahita Cascade has a game plan.

Had she not volunteered so early, feeling the foretold doom crashing over the Justice Building in a rolling black wave, going to sweep everything up in a tumble of a forever darkening abyss, and had she waited until she's eighteen, Anahita sees herself being very clearly the victor of those Games, the 106th, would it be she holds her tongue and stays in line like she's supposed to. Anahita feels the burn in her calves the moment she finally reaches the stage, as it seems that the girl who is supposed to volunteer is so caught off guard by such a tiny, yet powerful voice overpowering her own, that she's frozen in her own little pale dress standing on the steps. The burning in the calves, however, means dedication, a conviction, the need and want to get out there and do what needs to be done, no matter the age.

She didn't get a nine or ten, big deal, but a seven at thirteen is nothing to scoff at either, scoring better than so many other older tributes beneath her that they have to take her seriously now. Anahita smiles to herself, taking another step, going to tap Cyril on the back. Up until, well, she supposes twenty seconds ago, the mantra is her screaming at herself in her head to be the best, to be so much better than the rest of the pack that they must take notice, and if they don't take notice, she'd pry their eyelids off and force them to look at her, never to blink. She doesn't need to be _that _violent, though she supposes a bit of it wouldn't hurt anyone too much, no fatalities at least when she's finished. Anahita doesn't get too far from her own door, however, before the clamoring noise of the other five Careers reaches a pinnacle pressure point.

"FINE!" Aris roars, alongside the same time Satin lets out an anguished groan. "Do it yourselves, then, Jules! I'm targeting you first though, and don't you forget it!"

Anahita raises an eyebrow in confusion, Aris's outburst startling the District 3 pair as Aris then brushes past them so he can stand in his spot, Satin following suit since she'll be first, after all. Maren slinks up against the wall at her spot, though it probably belongs to someone from District 5 or 6, and Jules looks over at Cyril, some sort of unknown agreement passing between them, as the male from One then turns to face Anahita. Anahita watches her district partner then turn to Maren, but she cannot hear him, his voice too low over the ringing in her ears. She locks eyes with Cyril, who steps over to her. She'll have to admit, she doesn't read him quite well, despite finding him somewhat nice, almost a familial relationship, she supposes, but she's only hung out with him the one time, he bringing death's number to her doorstep.

"What was that all about?" she asks him the moment her reaches her, and she has to stifle a laugh, as his suit is nearly as red, if not even brighter than the color of his acne. It must've been done on purpose, for now his entire face emanates a serene, nearly bright vermillion glow under the hanging lights.

"Well, Jules told Aris and Satin that-" he starts.

"Never mind that, it's not important," Anahita interrupts him, actually not really caring about what Aris and Satin need explained to them. They seem like smart cookies - a thought of Anahita's dwindling bite by bite now - and can see when the writing is on the wall that they are not top dogs anymore. "I want you to do something for me."

"Anahita," Cyril says, but she is not going to let him override her just because. There's a principle, dammit!

"I was thinking that you and Jules, together, should ask the others about having me back in the alliance," it is the idea that comes to her head, after his whisper in his ear while she holds the kunai, slicing the dummies to shreds in a wake of blueberry foam and fake guts splattering onto her hands. Cyril opens his mouth to interrupt again, but she forges onwards, a skipper traveling through the ice after an elusive narwhal. "Think about it! Maisey, last year, got a seven just like I did and I'm sure I'm a way better fighter than her. I know I'm young, but I got the same score she did and she was allowed in the alliance, and I think that makes me better than what you all think I am. Jules is also the leader now, and he's my district partner and unless you want to make him mad you should listen to him and-" At this point, Anahita has turned into a rambling shanty, words spilling over the other, excitement bubbling in her ankles as she overwhelms the room, she feeling herself get out of breath, but after a moment of her rambling, Cyril physically shushes her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Anahita, slow _down,_" he enunciates the last word with a chuckle, a light heartedness in his eyes. "There won't be any need for that, Anahita."

"Why not?" she frowns, furrowing her eyebrows together. She doesn't understand. How could the answer still be no? She's done everything they need of her! She's proved herself! What else does she need to do? Anahita resists the urge of stomping her foot, though she does lift it off of the ground some. "Why, Cyril? Answer me!"

Cyril smiles, as if he has a secret to tell, inhaling heavily. "Jules told the others that you were in the alliance, and then said that he didn't want Aris or Satin _in _the alliance, so he kicked them out of it."

Well, _well._

That is not what she expects to happen next, but it does have Anahita stumbling up against the wall in shock. She thinks it would have to be her groveling at someone's feet, begging to be heard, begging to be seen, diminishing herself in the face of her betters, an act that sounds as sour as she'd expect it to, but now _this...? _This is a reversal of fortune, a halo hailing from the sky and landing on her head, Anahita beaming back at him, but then that smile is reversed with a look of confusion. "He kicked Satin and Aris out of the Careers?"

"He has the right to, being the highest scorer and all."

"And you didn't have a problem with it?"

"With Aris, not at all, I don't like him," Cyril says rather point blank, "I'll make Satin come around, though, I think, I'm sure of it."

Anahita's brain is a train tunnel of commotion and confusion, carts passing by on neuro pathways, stimulating her body to want to jump for joy, but something else still sticks out in her head. The Careers are broken, once again, as she saw what happened at the bloodbath when Marcus, the District 1 male is allowed back in the alliance after saving Valencia's life, but this... this is different, someone being physically removed out of the alliance without warning, all over another member? That member being her. A sudden weight settles onto her shoulder, nearly downing her to a knee, she pressing herself into the wall to keep herself as upright as she can.

"Why are you and Maren staying?"

Cyril grins back at her, and she feels that this is the most genuine interaction with anyone she's ever had in the Capitol, even over Jules and her talking, and she likes being around her district partner. "Honest truth, Anahita? I think you proved yourself. And well, I didn't want you to be discounted either. For Maren, I imagine it's the same way."

Anahita realizes, rather suddenly, that the other tributes are starting to conjoin in the hallway, getting into place, dressed in various outfits and costumes, some _looking _like costumes than being pretty outfits for an interview, if hers is anything to go by, a little beached siren gasping for breath on a shallow, hollowed out rock. If everyone else is joining, it means the Interviews are about to be up soon, as then the recognizable trumpet fanfare echoes out of speakers gathering dust in the corners, and stepping through the façade of the velvet curtains hiding the back of the stage, their Master of Ceremonies, Pollux Aetos, waving to the crowd.

"Well, I- I don't know what to say, Cyril," she babbles over herself, at a loss for words. "I hope I am worth it."

"Believe me," Cyril chuckles to himself, darkly, sucking the energy out of the moment even while the audience gathered in the amphitheater cheer and roar alongside their jolly host. "I don't want to regret this."

"You won't," Anahita replies with solitude. "I'll make sure of it."

She's damn right she'll make sure of it.

And if she doesn't? Well, she'll always have that kunai by her side.

* * *

**_Sophiana Delarosa: District 5 Female P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

The night is already a disaster and she has yet to even have her interview. Standing in front of Seth, she can feel his breath hot against her neck as he stands there, watching the Interviews with her, her sandaled feet starting to hurt as the shoes must be a size too small. She's dressed in some sort of short dress patterned to be like a galaxy of stars, and when she turns, so does the fabric, a darkening expanse on the night sky, but Sophiana is incapable of thinking about anything else other than what is happening on the stage. Satin is the first person to be interviewed, and although Pollux doesn't go there, the entire audience is comparing her to Valencia the moment she steps out on stage, down to the blonde hair, and Sophiana wants to feel bad for her, but in the back of her head that thought is there, about the person standing on stage being a cold blooded killer, and the sympathy goes away immediately. Cyril is in an even worse shadow, his father being a Hunger Games victor - that comes as a surprise - and the crowds most definitely draw comparisons.

Maren talks about her parents, primarily focusing on her mother and how the Johnson matriarch is suffering from cancer, that drawing oodles of comfort and generosity out of the audience. Aris, for some reason that Sophiana cannot discern, is fuming angry when he sits down in the hot seat, dressed handsomely, but barking at every question Pollux asks, leaving _early. _She didn't know a Career could leave early. Ciphra is a joy to listen to, she prattling on about someone named Veracity, Sophiana hanging onto every word, expecting it to be some boyfriend, but instead it's a stupid freaking robot, expectations crushed, interview ruined for her. Tach, someone who seems to be unable to sit still, talks about something she's never even heard of... _tachyons, _the concept spilling over her head. Anahita is a bubbling ball of excitement, riding Tach's energetic personality with full force about being allowed in the Careers based on her talent, Sophiana gulping as she could see the little girl snapping her neck with ease. Jules is a cooled cat, sitting back in his chair, there being idle talk of being the highest scoring Career, an unasked question lingering on the air. _The last victor was a Career who was the highest scoring tribute. You're the highest scoring Career... does this mean a victory for you?_

Sophiana knows the night is a disaster as she takes her place on stage, after Pollux's booming introduction which still echoes in her ears, and the audience is without a sound, crickets chirping in the desolate corners of the theater. She takes her seat, feeling all of their eyes on her, and she knows what they're all thinking. _The girl that lost her ever loving mind at the Reaping. The girl who screams at the top of her lungs when being dragged to the stage. The one where the escort looks at her as if she is diseased. Maybe... maybe she is diseased. _Pollux smiles at her sweetly, but she sees the look in his eyes, the pitiful kind. Everyone is just so _damn _pitied of her.

"Good evening, Sophiana. I must say, the dress looks great!"

"_If the only amazing thing about me is an outfit I had no choice in wearing, then I've already lost,_" she thinks to herself, and then out loud, as tactfully as she can manage. "Thank you. I think it looks great." She hates the stupid dress. Yolanda didn't pick it out for her, so she isn't going to like it.

Pollux scoots up some on his chair, he dressed like a sliver of moonlight, decorated entirely in silver, clinking quarters onto a sidewalk as he moves. "How has the Capitol been treating you?"

"Alright, I guess," Sophiana shrugs. In the Delarosa house, speaking your mind had been prohibited, yet here she is, miles and miles away from home and what home could do to her, from what her father could ever dream of doing, yet she holds back her opinions, as she responds, Pollux looking at her with what Sophiana calls the 'generality' face, simply boring, simply uninterested. "It is a much different place than home."

She expects the next question to be, '_different how'_, but all she wants to do is get off of the stage, for she can feel Seth's gaze burning into her back, right directly between the shoulder blades, she unsure as to why since after telling him what her last name is, he gasps, looks at her like she is radioactive, and vanishes into the elevator, staying away from her at all times. "Sophiana, if you don't mind," Pollux clears his throat, balancing an elbow on the arm of the chair, "I'd like to reference your reaping for a moment, setting the scene for the audience in case they forgot."

Sophiana hasn't forgotten. She doesn't forget. No matter how hard she closes her eyes and screams at herself to forget, she doesn't forget when the cigars go into her flesh, sliding up and down on her ashy skin, searing scorch lines across her body in tandem marks of fire and brandy, while the cinders get in her hair, singeing up the bits that they can touch. She doesn't forget the punches to the stomach, with her father's gritted teeth glare staring down at her from above. Deep down, in her heart, she doesn't feel terrible when she jumps for joy, knowing that her father has been thrown in prison for burning someone's home down, that the monster in her life is put in jail and won't see the light of day until she's gone and out of District 5 forever, and it does not even settle in her own heart about how she's skipped over the fact someone else has died when her father goes on his arson lighting rampage.

What is the name of the family that lost a little girl in the fire? Sophiana searches her head for it, but nothing comes up.

"Sure," she says, although she'd much rather vomit all over his expensive suit.

"Those leaves," Pollux continues, after a pause, scooting closer. "The ones that came free off of your dress, why did they matter to you so much? I imagine it's a bit painful to relive the memory, but," _Then why are you resurrecting the memory, you fruit fuck? _"I am sure we are all curious as to why those leaves were so important. It isn't not like you can't go and find them anywhere."

Sophiana doesn't take her eyes off of him, mouth slightly lowering itself in shock. How could anyone be so dismissive of a past? How could anyone be so cold and stone faced to tragedy looking them in the eye? "Well, Pollux," she starts, stirring in her spot, "My older sister, Yolanda, and I, used to have tea parties a lot when we were young to distract ourselves from my father and his fighting with Mom," All the noises echoing against the walls, and Yolanda pushing Sophiana's face to the side, to keep her gaze focused directly on the leaves and their little porcelain cups, and nothing else. Not the battered shadows or blood splatters, or the raised voices. Solely on the dosage of happiness that didn't exist in a cheap dollar cup. "We didn't have the full set for anything, so we used leaves as our napkin or plate..." a surge of emotion wells in her throat, but Sophiana swallows it down. "I sewed those leaves onto every outfit I ever wore from thirteen on, so you can imagine why I was upset when they came off of my dress, and then the added realization of me being reaped."

The Interviewer nods his head, a slight murmur of dissent rummaging through the crowd, Sophiana snorting to herself in her head. They don't care; none of them do. "I'm sorry to hear that, Sophiana. I take it your father wasn't a nice man? Although the image wasn't clear there were some..."

"Scars," she finishes for him, and Sophiana pulls back on the sleeves of her dress, adding them specifically for a stylist request, and although the cut of the dress is short, dark stockings covered her legs, but she rolls them up too. "Cigarette and cigar burns."

Pollux scoots back some in his chair, a look of revulsion - no, not quite revulsion, maybe even a sense of sadness, Sophiana isn't sure - and she can sense the presence of the stage camera zooming in on her arms, darkened flesh torn to a war battleground. "What's your last name, Sophiana?"

"Delarosa."

"Then that means your father is-"

"Yes," she interrupts him again. "My father is the infamous arsonist from District 5, and these are his markings," Sophiana says. A teared sob escapes her, as one lonesome teardrop slides down her cheek. "His markings are my scars..."

The moment she reveals this, however, as the audience gives a collective gasp, and apparently some of the other tributes do too, the boy from Nine being the loudest gasp she hears out of the bunch, Sophiana leaps to her feet. Everything is supposed to be hidden, kept away from the world, and somehow in the matter of three minutes she's spilled her heart out to the entire nation about her father, the fighting, the tea parties, the leaves, Yolanda... there's nothing left. She is incapable of stopping the tears that begin to stream down her cheeks, her lower lip trembling, voice wavering. Pollux motions forward some to her, as if to coax her back into the seat, but she withdraws into herself, a shaky gasp eliciting itself from her throat.

"Sophiana, please sit back down and..."

She doesn't respond to his plea, or the two times he calls her name after that, for she can feel the bile in her throat beginning to rise, Sophiana booking it off of the stage, and the tears follow suit, and in the echo of her beating heart, as her father's screaming voice bears down on her, her buzzer goes off, the nail in the coffin of her demise.

* * *

**_Ponty Carr: District Six Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

It may sound rude, but no one will ever hear his thoughts, so he's okay with committing to it. Ponty is extremely glad his life is not like Sophiana's, that poor girl who just fled from the stage in tears. Say what you will about not everyone's upbringing being happy, but he's more fortunate than most, especially when considering the money in the coffers is bursting full. The audience already being in emotional turmoil does not have their spirits raised when Seth follows suit, talking about losing those closest to him, though he does never spill any further on who he is referring to at Pollux's invite. Amaris goes next, in her Peacekeeper uniform - Ponty knows it isn't actually _hers, _just something given to her off the shelf, but it is a size too big for her, and he's holding in his laughter at the way she flounces about like a giant sheet, detracting just a bit from her impressive training score.

Speaking of, he has no idea how he got a freaking six, as although Ponty tries not to blow himself up too much, there's no way his session had been mediocre, middle of the line, along with a twelve year-old from Nine... there's just no way. However, remaining focused on the past is something he's trying to move past - he groans inwardly at the reality of what he just told himself - since, apparently, as he sits next to Pollux, he has a grouched up look on his face, as Pollux prods, wondering why the upset look. Ponty gives a fair smile, laughing to himself. "No, just thinking of Amaris." That is not the best statement he could've come up with, by the way the Master of Ceremonies smiles back, raising his eyebrows surreptitiously in amusement. "Not like that," he adds, quickly, a tinge of red appearing at his neck.

Ponty tugs at his collar, wearing a dark suit, the cuffs emblazoned in a gold trimming, and he asks if he can carry a blowing glass demonstration on stage with him, that earning a doggedly frown and perceptible shake of the head, plus a _'are you crazy?' _motion that he knows it would've been a stupid question to ask, but it would surely make him more memorable stupid six in the private sessions. That is going to bother him until the Earth is no more, he knows it, for even though he views needing to put the work in to reap the successful benefits of time, he _has _put in the time and effort and it has come up to give him nothing but shards of glass and streams of sand slipping between his fingers. Ponty wonders what everyone is thinking of him as he sits on stage, all of their attention - a crowd of at least a thousand people, if not even upwards of that - focused in on him, and this is the first time in his life he feels like he's been noticed.

Back home, with all of the glassblowing artwork he does, when someone stops by to adore a creation, which is in itself a rare event regardless as it means someone needs to have the _money _to do so in traveling onto the Carr side of town, someone admiring the pieces that he generally makes himself does not give him credit. He's the one hiding behind a column, shirtless, covered in soot, muscles aching underneath the strain of his work, as he does so for hours on end, every day, all week, for the whole year, for the last three years straight. Ponty is not shaking anyone's hand, telling them it is he who has who made the delightful artisan piece they are looking at, but it is not as if anyone is wondering aloud who has made them. "_Me,_" he thinks to himself, slightly smug if he can help it, "_The beauty you're sitting in? My family did this. I did this. No thank you is necessary._"

That is the truth, however, as he ponders over whatever Pollux asks him next, some sort of joke about tension being a run-of-the mill ordeal between the district partners. Should anyone wish to attribute praise or gratitude towards any of his creations, it is always towards the _Carr _family, not Ponty himself. "_But I did,_" he grumbles inwardly. _"I'm the one who did this for you all and I'm being glossed over. My parents didn't do shit!_" However, at that moment, Pollux reaches over and presses a hand on his shoulder, laughing gently. The boy from Six blinks in a distracted moment of surprise, smiling lightly. "I'm sure of it," he responds, not knowing the question.

"Are you sure?" Pollux's grin is very telling, and the few people Ponty can see hidden under the veil of light - somehow he finds that to be an oxymoron of sorts - have stars in their eyes, though surely the time is already winding down in his interview. "You and Amaris strike me as a power couple here."

"Trust me, no lost love between us," he says again, the Interviewer holding his hands up in a '_I surrender_' motion.

Ponty shifts his legs so his left foot balances on his right knee, frowning. As he's being dolled up, with Criston Pellock watching from afar, seeming entirely out of straits, unfocused, hair slightly unkempt, Ponty listens to the stylists and the prep team instead - _God, that is the most insufferable conversation he has ever sat through. He thought he's spoiled, with the luxurious artisan touch, but he's clearly never heard the fashionistas of the Capitol... _\- and it passes over his ears that there's a rumor circulating in the upper groups that the reason his score is a six is because, despite such an impressive showing that would've garnered him an eight, maybe even an nine on the likes of Aris and Satin, is because the Carr family designed a stained glass window representing some sort of cavalry charge down a hill as a present for the Head Gamemaker, and it is supposedly some sort of horrific monster. "_That's impossible,_" Ponty shakes his head at the thought. "_Anything my family makes is a masterpiece. She must be blind._"

In the present, with the audience laughing at something Pollux does, he shifts as well in his seat, bouncing his calling card on his knee. "So, Ponty, you're from District 6," he nods at the fact. "Last name is Carr... Carr and District 6 means that your family is the glassblowing artisans, correct?"

There's no point in denying it. Capitol familiarity means sponsors, sponsors means surviving longer, and surviving longer means beating Amaris O'Hara's stupid ass to the ground and becoming a victor. "Yeah, that's me."

"Glassblowing, right?" Pollux asks. Ponty frowns, but nods alongside the question once more. Hasn't this just been covered? The Interviewer smiles to himself, something villainous, hiding the grin behind the calling card. "Please forgive me, but wouldn't your job involve a lot of blowing techniques? The ability to suck in the cheeks? Air control?" Ponty agrees with silent moments of affirmation. He's still not seeing the glass object being fully built in front of him. "Does that mean your... well... blowing skills are much better than the average male or female?"

It takes a second for Ponty to truly understand the question, but it seems the audience has understood it immediately, the way that their laughter takes off into the air, raucous and unrelenting. The tips of his ears flush a putrid scarlet, he sitting upright. How... how _dare _he! "Mr. Aetos, I-"

"It's okay," Pollux interrupts him. "I just hope all the lucky ladies out there get to experience you at your best," and then, aside to the audience, although it is truly out in the _fucking _open for everyone, "And maybe Amaris too."

Ponty clenches the sides of the chair, near about to rip the Velcro off with just his pinkies. "Well, unfortunately I can't say for the men," he jokes, all the while his skin boils. "But, I promise you, Pollux, I'll get back to you on that."

The Master of Ceremonies guffaws at the joke, Ponty sharing a brief smile, making sure to show off his canines. He's never felt the urge to bite anyone, but ripping out Pollux's throat seemed entirely satiable and very sane in the moment, under the spotlights. The audience's laughter continues until the buzzer marks his dismissal, Ponty's ears still burning as the lewd talk follows him off of the stage.

He knows, however, that even though that might've just been the most humiliating experience in his entire life, it still must be a thousand times worse for Amaris.

That brightens his mood more than any potentially well made sponsor gift.

* * *

**_Cambric Vogel: District 8 Male P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

Cambric knew full and well that his private session had been queer to both the Head Gamemaker and Valencia, but he honestly chokes on his water the moment the score of _12 _flashes underneath his name, caught entirely off guard, and then the underwhelming score of _1 _flashing under Magdalena's picture that has her cursing and throwing a pillow onto the floor. He stands in his spot in line, swathed in a deep velvet suit, matching stark gray pants, and dark dress shoes, he has never felt this amazing. Sage Dagoba goes after Ponty and the wondering on his suction game, and the only talk that seems to infect the room with her on stage is of her training score, and he can tell that she's lying from his spot on stage at the way her brow furrows together, and then in a moment of oddity, she asks Pollux if she could sing to the audience, in which she does, but just a few verses of some sort of District 7 work song. Her voice is strong, and he's seen her axe skills, but he doesn't think she'll last.

Roanoke is a sweet kid, ducking his head a lot as he answers Pollux's rather uninspired questions, and then, at the end, the kid goes on some sort of monologue about life and death and he's half paying attention, but the audience is engrossed as all get out, and the applause the kid receives seemed more than a few of the Careers, if Cambric recalls correctly. Magdalena is after him, he smiling to himself in his spot, as he's come to like his district partner and her brash attitude, they talking about wounds a lot together, although he only approaches it in the medical aspects, she seems to have a fascination with them on a different level. In fact, speaking of wounds, that is her interview, she wearing a backless diamond dress - she quips at the idea that she stole it, but he is only half certain she's joking. With Magdalena, who knows? - and it is the revealing of scars unlike no other, lashes and whip marks, and robe burns, but Magdalena shows them off without shame, and her telling smile dancing on her face all the while. Pollux looks like he wishes to throw up.

He better not puke on his shoes.

Cambric gives the Interviewer a mighty hand shake when he sits down, crossing his legs like Ponty had been doing so for his interview, sitting back somewhat on the chair. He'd kill for this type of leather back home, to rest on, his shoes coming alive like shining pieces of onyx underneath the stage lights. Pollux finishes introducing him, the clapping dying down slowly, but he knows that it is hanging on the air. The wonder and the amazement... how did this kid score a twelve? Cambric is trying to understand and figure the answer to that himself. In fact, it is the next thing to come out of Pollux's mouth when the audience settles into their normalcy.

"The guy to score a twelve, and from a generally unremarkable district," Cambric winces at the statement, which surely everyone sees, he slightly irritated at the drop of coolness. "I am sure, as is everyone else, what the hell did you do to get such a high score?"

"Part of it dealt with my job back home," he responds truthfully. He had tried practicing a few weapons, such as a knife or a slender sword, but his arms felt all wrong when swinging in those barbaric motions. The concept of wrapping bandages around a wounded arm, or something to that pedigree is what his body knows. Not... violence, never the violence. He's seen too much of it to like it and wish to be in it all the time, but as a field doctor in a district full of accidents, often times the danger finds him without he wanting it.

"And what would that be?" Pollux asks, shifting his fingers back and forth on the manila calling card.

"I'm a medic," Cambric says. "I've been doing it for a few years now, and I think it's my passion, medicine and the like."

He's thought about revealing his boyfriend, but Loden had told him before they departed, lips pressed against one another, their breathing matched in synchronization that it is no one's business but their own about them being together. He is not going to betray his boyfriend's wishes, not even if Magdalena were to press a knife under his chin and demand the truth. Pollux nods his head, interested, as Cambric isn't sure if he's been the first full fledged medical practitioner to be in the Games. There's been some herbalist types, maybe even some healers, but he's a step up above all that, or at least, he believes that to be the case. Although he knows his supervisors would absolutely murder him on the spot if they knew this, the idea of becoming a medic is not something that took years and years of discovery to lead to... it is one that falls into his brain one day, he decides he liked it enough, and the rest is history. And some of he and Loden's personal times interspersed too, which causes him to blush.

"That's very interesting," Pollux says. "Medicine is very important."

"_Yet you're killing_ me..." Cambric thinks to himself, darkly, but he tries not focusing on the negative. The negative is place where things don't grow, the negative is where the vile creatures of the dark come out to play, with their talons and fangs, glowing halcyon eyes and shimmering aquamarine fur... a shiver runs through him, and it is at this moment that Cambric decides to take it up a notch; screw formalities, and being dressed nice, and doing what everyone wants him to do. It's his interview time after all, and if Roanoke Arkus, at thirteen, can be entertained on concepts of life and death, why shouldn't he? "Pollux, would you indulge me for a second?"

"Of course," the interviewer blinks, releasing control rather easily. Cambric frowns to himself, expecting some sort of charged yelling, or a fight that would end with the two in tears. "It is your time, just remember, on the clock."

"Have you ever lost someone close to you?" he asks, point blank. The audience as a collective whole take a deep breath of shock. "Have you ever seen someone die in front of you?"

Pollux's face visibly changes into one of discomfort, his lips flattening into a straight line, his hands going to fiddle with his tie. "What- what do you mean, Cambric? I mean, of course I have, I host the Games and-"

"No, that's not what I mean," Cambric shakes his head, scooting closer to Pollux, in case he wishes to run away, but that'd be highly unprofessional. "Have you physically had someone die in front of you? Their body is in your arms, blood spilling down your hands, and you're trying to keep your voice level, your nerves kept at bay, cause otherwise the dying person will know they're dying, and you don't want that to be the last memory they have. Nor do you want the guilt settling in your stomach the next day that you caused this," he repeats the question once more, the Master of Ceremonies staring at him with a look of astonishment, the audience so quiet he could hear the moans of the dead rising up from underneath the floorboards. "Have you, Mr. Aetos?"

He swallows heavily, a hardening lump down his throat - _gods, _Cambric realizes, staring at his lips, _this man is gorgeous! How is he still single? _\- and shakes his head back and forth. "No, I haven't. I- I assume you have?"

Cambric nods, face solemn, without expression. "More than once, I'm afraid," and a lump forms in his throat. The feeling is true, what he just told Pollux and all of Panem, about having someone in his arms, their warm blood spilling onto his skin, staining his dark sheet even moreso with their crimson tides, some patients gasping for breath as the smoke clogging their lungs chokes them out inwardly. Sometimes, one is screaming about rust infections while another medic is desperate to try and wrap up and gauze a severed limb, it spewing profusely onto the carpet of their makeshift tent, while Cambric presses a hand to the side of their face, begging, hoping, pleading that they just _look _at him until the Angel of Death comes from the heavens. "I haven't had anyone close to me die, however." Something unspoken rises on the wind, an '_At least, not yet..._'

Pollux sits back up in his chair, upright. "I'm sorry Cambric, that you've had to go through with all of that."

The male from Eight has to bite down on his tongue to stop the laughter that would have erupted from his throat. "You're not sorry. Don't sit here and lie to me. I'm in the Hunger Games, about to die," Cambric loses the mocking joviality of his voice, back into the serious zone. Bullies, he hates them, and he's looking directly in the eyes with one of them, a gigantic _bully. _"There are a million emotions I know that you and the other Capitolites feel. You all feel sorrow, happiness, joy, anger, greed, desire... but you're never sorry." He leans forward some, getting almost nose-to-nose with their Master of Ceremonies. "However, you know what one thing doesn't separate us? What makes us district citizens and tributes the same as you?"

"What does..." Pollux asks after a moment's hesitation, for Cambric has gone just a bit over his allotted time, yet the buzzer has not come.

Cambric smiles to himself, a joyful smile, one full of pleasure, every emotion he mentioned riddled in it. "You bleed the same as the rest of us."

The buzzer decides that now it is a good time to go off, and Cambric's damage has already been done.

* * *

**_Audhild Olthono: District 9 Female P.O.V (12)_**

* * *

"Are you going to talk about death, Audhild?" is the first question to come out of Pollux's mouth as the somber Cambric Vogel departs from the stage. She sits down comfortably in the chair, getting swallowed up by her gigantic dress, some sort of fluorescent yellow beast, painted and she dolled up to represent a daisy, and although Audhild thinks she looks gorgeous, she knows that she most certainly looks a bit ridiculous too, but no one in the audience has laughed yet and so far she's banking on twenty seconds.

"No, I don't think so," she admits, giggling. Despite it being drilled in her head on what she needs to do, she hasn't prepared a single line of dialogue to herself on what to do, regardless of what he asks her. Audhild looks out over the crowd, seeing a plethora of odd faces, a mix of fabrics weaving together, women wearing monocles, men in top hats and fluffy hats made of animal fur, but she realizes then that everyone in the audience is paying attention. They're paying attention _to _her. Back home, between her and her five brothers, she's got the least amount of attention from her parents yet they're all looking - the audience, certainly not her family, they can't afford the cost for television services - down at her with adoration. If victorship is something she is looking at on the horizon, this is something she could get mightily used to, she certainly hopes.

Getting a six has so far been the highlight of the trip, in a sea of murkiness and uncharted waters, as she's scored higher than Jason despite he being four years the wiser, and although she knows she really could snap him like a twig, he seems to be one of those tributes with the much higher performance capabilities, yet the star alignment in the sky is reversed. He smiles at her sweetly, congratulating her on the average placement, alongside some older tributes, beating out a lot of older tributes, but her skin bristles with electricity at the smile. She's seen that one before, that type of look. Jealousy, speckled in certain shades of green, mutated, darker colors bouncing off of each other in a damp, dark corner. Perhaps he means some of his congratulatory responses, but it doesn't stop the unease from still settling beneath her arms, causing her to have goosebumps. He's after her, in just a few moments, and Audhild has no idea what he's going to talk about, he seeming to be just as unprepared as her.

Pollux takes a look at her, beaming. Seems like she's converted another, huh? "I must say, you simply look wonderful."

"Thank you, Pollux," she smiles back at him. Her parents didn't treat her right without adding manners to the mix. A lack of manners in the Olthono house is her knuckles being slapped with a wooden spoon, or the threat of being sent down to the Peacekeeper office should the naughty behavior be kept up. Audhild never wants to go back there again, despite the bully's parents demanding more, more punishment for the little terror that stabs their son, and all Audhild can keep screaming at them is, "_It's an accident! It was an accident! Why can't you just forgive me? He's going to live!_" and it is at that moment, as she does this, that Audhild realizes she's the worst person in the world. Her smile falters a bit, on stage, and to buck herself up, "I wish I could say the same for you, my friend."

He laughs heartily at that, placing a hand on his stomach, and the laugh to rise out of the audience sounds a hint more nervous than what she would want, but she has to factor in that the previous nut job weirdo tribute just told them all that they still can bleed and die, which is _such _a happy thought. Audhild giggles again, alongside the others, though the nagging thought of being the worst person to ever live in all of mankind settles in a nice corner. She's heard some of the talk amongst a few Capitol trainers while she's training, going back to weapons training over and over and over again that it is a waste of time, that she will be dead before the Bloodbath ends, so why even bother? It requires a lot of self-control on her part to not stab the laughing workers in their throats, but that'll guarantee a punishment worse than a whipping.

"You're full of surprises, aren't you?"

"Trust me, I'm learning something about myself too," Audhild responds earnestly, another roar of approval from the crowd. This is wonderful! This is the absolute best! She sees how her parents sometimes sneer down at her, disappointment reflected in their gray eyes, and her bumbling about around an apology, but up here, she feels like she can do no wrong. She feels untouchable, immortal, bathing in the fountain of Aphrodite, receiving Hera's blessing, and she leans back into the chair, engulfed in her daisy dress.

"I imagine you're proud about that six, huh? I'd say, at your age, it's a mighty good score."

"Yeah, I'm happy about it," she says, before wincing to herself. Manners, politeness, professionalism. _Yeah _is not professional. Yes sir. Yes ma'am. She knows better; she's always known better. It is her not knowing better that has a kid screaming in pain with a bloodied knife gripped in her hand, as if someone didn't know what would happen when an Olthono has their buttons pushed too far. It is her not knowing better than has it be written so a Peacekeeper can turn her back into a canvas for meteor strikes, as showering is painful, and her parents don't speak to her for a week. Whatever friends she had before vanish as if they never existed, for what if little Audi decides to snap on those closest to her and they're next? "I didn't know I had it in me," and the audience murmurs approval once more. "_That is a lie,_" she tells herself, however, inwardly, "_You're just too scared to show it off._"

Pollux nods along at the statements, drumming his fingers on the armchair. "Is there anything interesting you can tell me about yourself?"

Audhild sits up, frowning. Something interesting about her? Well... "I'm one of six children," she says, and a gasp - it isn't a gasp, but words fail her in the moment at what type of reaction they're all having - rises from the viewers. "And the only girl," the interviewer blinks at her, not quite following. She runs her hands alongside the frills of her dress. "In District 9, not a lot of families have as many children like mine does. A lot of us die young due to hay fever and some other stuff..." A resurgence of bile rises in the back of her throat. "But, not us!" Audhild adds cheerfully, departing from the melancholy, as there's been enough of it on stage. "My brothers and I are all close."

There's a pause before the next question comes her way. "Six children is a lot. Are you all in school?" she nods at the statement. "All in the same school?"

She licks her lips, her throat suddenly going dry. A splash of crimson covers her ledger, she clenching onto the armrests, inhaling sharply. "All my brothers go to the same school, but I..." she hesitates, holding the next few syllables in the nape of her neck, a warmth spilling out over the skin. "I had to switch to being homeschooled."

"Why'd you have to do that?"

"I was being bullied," Audhild says, picking at the end piece of her dress, or at least at the parts she could reach, trying to keep a neutral expression on her face. "It didn't end... well, _well_, and my parents thought it was best I be taught away from everyone else," a hint of sadness peeks through, but to her credit, she doesn't cry.

"How about this year's assemble of tributes?" Pollux ganders, leaning into her personal space as if they're friends, but it is an idea she is not against at all. "Any of them seem like bullies to you?"

Audhild looks to the right of her, where sitting in a gaggle are the tributes who have had their interviews already, District 1 to 8 are watching are, some sitting close to each other, some far apart. Her gaze then goes back down to the other tributes still waiting on stage right - her physical left - in their assembled line to have their own interview, Jason at the forefront. "Jason's amazing," she says, and he smiles at that, a warm _ah _sound rising from the audience, but then she solidifies her gaze, having watched enough, having seen enough to know. "However, some of them definitely are," and then she directs her attention back to Pollux. "I beat my bullies up, Mr. Aetos. If someone bullies me, it won't end well."

"Just like it didn't go well for your last one?"

She nods, unsure of which other tribute to keep her gaze on, deciding to settle directly onto Amaris from District 6, since she is in the forefront of the seats, and the girl knows that they've locked eyes. "If it had been anything like how my last encounter went, they'd be dead," and then, just before the buzzer announces her end of the interview, "I stabbed mine in the side."

* * *

**_Zola Taonga: District 11 Female P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

Having to be near Vanya for as long as she's had to over the last hour and a half is making her want to leap out of her skin entirely, her entire body consumed in an itch. She feels like she's about to jump right out of her body in an all consuming release of rage, having to hear his woe-is-me speeches and over indulgent talk about sponsors and the Capitol facilities, when truth be told, she simply misses hitting him in the head with a basket from her Red Riding costume. She asks her mentor if that can be what she brings into the arena as her token, but it is shot down, and the other token she has stays, her parent's wedding ring, given to her by her sister, the same one she... _never mind, _it doesn't matter anymore. Zola keeps her attention focused on those standing on stage, dressed beautifully unlike she is, or at least, she believes she isn't dressed amazingly.

Her outfit is some sort of freakish garb in terms that Zola will call herself a walking carpet, fabric strewn together and placed like so that it looks like a discombobulated mess, tiger print and leopard print and a patch of bear fur on her left shoulder... her stylist says it has something to do with her African-American culture, whatever that even is, as Zola has no idea, but she hopes her ancestors dressed better as she's unsure if she'll be laughed off of the stage or not when she appears to everyone. Jason's interview is sweet, talking about his father, someone he seems to be very close to, but the kid mentions distance separating them as if they were standing on two desolate islands continents apart. Vivian is the first out of Ten and the interview centers around her hair color, it being that striking, blizzard snowstorm white, with the crimson tie holding it in place, and Zola finds the girl extremely formidable, someone to not be crossed. Rodric talks about his parents, the Oxfords, and something to do with legacy, but she doesn't understand any of it. What sort of legacy does a cattle herder need to inherit?

Pollux is back to standing up when he introduces Zola, she seeing her face plastered on the fifteen foot tall billboards behind him, it being her face in slow motion doing circles, her district number wrapped around it, and her private session score being atop that in bronze. She knows it'll already hurt seeing Vanya's _10 _shine where they all go, but apparently, as he claims, he's shown the world true beauty, and by the world, that would be only two people in the Center at the time... she's trying to figure out how to swallow the cinderblock of syrup that is Vanya Vasiliev. Zola makes her way to Pollux, he kissing her hand when she reaches him, and a few members cheer in the audience at getting a full look of her, a blush settling on her cheeks.

"My, my, my!" Pollux exclaims. "What a wonderful outfit!"

"I- thank you," Zola says, caught off guard, face burning, and he invites for her to sit down, in which she obliges. Her dark skin lustrously shines underneath the spotlights, her thick curls dyed a vivacious amaranthine at the tips, which'll wash out when she showers. "My stylist wanted me to go back to my roots, but it's a place I've never heard of." It doesn't seem to matter, however, what she thinks on the outfit, as the camera zooms in on her, getting a close up before winding up her whole body. She feels out of her element, but if it garners attention, where's the harm?

"I'd say you have one of the most creative interview dresses I've seen in years, Zola, so please, feel proud," he says, and the crowd whistles their encouragement. Zola looks out at the audience, raising an eyebrow. It has been one of her strengths, the ability to read a room, and yet when she stares at the audience out in front of her, she's surprised at the reading she's getting from them. She'd expect, after having to sit through twenty-two tributes and their boring, unsightly, or uninteresting interviews, that she and the others - Vanya, Bloom, and Mirek - would be completely out of their element, floundering like a fish left behind in the sand from a taken in bounty, no way to return to the water, begging for a lifeline that'd never come. The crowd she is looking out at are engaged, all sitting forward in their chairs, eyes bright, any sort of needless distractions settled down at their feet, and they're all on her.

She picks at the fabric which cuts off just above her knees, holding it in her hands for a second, before letting it fall back down. "It's certainly interesting, to say the least."

Zola does not want to be up on the stage; she wants to be sleeping already, but she also knows that the moment the interviews are all over, and Mirek says his piece, she'll be up with Vanya till god knows what time in the early morning talking more about the Capitol, and although she really can't stand being around the guy, something compels her to stay, as he's done some sort of apology - frankly, she has no idea what it is he does, just a few hours ago before they went to go get ready, his face twisting this way and that in a grotesque manner - about his rude behavior, but it doesn't seem like she needs to hold onto promises of him changing for the better, if him fawning over his golden outfit is anything to catch it by. She can read him at times, and other times, not at all.

Pollux mentions something, it might be about Vanya, but she isn't sure, as she's focused on the incessant buzzing going off in her ear. She frowns, tilting her head to the side, and then he looks over at her, inviting for a response. She searches her head for what must've just been covered, and it is indeed about her partner. "Yes, he's extremely talented."

"He's performed for you?"

"Who hasn't he performed for?" Zola answers, a flare of jealousy burning in her stomach. Why are they talking about Vanya during _her _interview? Is the only interesting thing about her being the quilt she's wearing? Pollux goes to say something else, and then, without a moment's hesitation, she blurts it out. "I dance too, actually!"

The Master of Ceremonies pauses his phrase, but she hadn't heard him, his lips formed in the shape of an 'o', before they settle into a flat line, he nodding at her. "Is that so? What kinds?"

"Not ballet like Vanya," she says. Somehow, with it being about her, she is finding ways for him to rear his ugly head in and take all the credit, the ass. "Soulful dancing. Salsa. Tango. Some rhythmic drumming..." Zola smiles to herself, leaning back in the chair. "My best friend and I, Narcissa, we sometimes take classes together. She's the one to actually get me interested. It's Hispanic dancing."

"Well aren't you just Miss Culture tonight?" Pollux smiles. "Care to demonstrate for us?"

"No, I'm alright," Zola refuses, once again, without hesitation. She loves dancing, she truly does, but the audience out in front of her, no matter how captivating they might be, none of them deserve to see her throw her passions out for the others to see; they haven't earned it. Narcissa's earned it, a tall, almost brutish looking girl with a heart of ice that Zola has somehow melted down in a matter of days, her best friend's hair a stark moonlit beam against her own darkening curls as they crash together in the studio, or her backyard, laughing, giggling, well... _until..._ "I don't want to take my shoes off, they were a bitch for me to get on," and then, on a sourer note, as Narcissa's smile vanishes, and the buzzing in her ear grows the ever more louder, "Dancing is how I earned this."

Zola pulls down on just around the collar, showing her clavicle, and appearing there, just at the ridge where her shoulder met her neck, is a welt still somewhat swollen, white, with pus around the apex of what clearly looks to be a bite dried around the edge. The camera zooms in on the wound, but Pollux's polite and happy face turns into that of revulsion, his voice dropping extremely low, the audience quiet to hang onto every word. "Is- is that what I think it is?"

She nods. "A tracker jacker sting," her throat goes dry, as if she's about to vomit. It had been a harmless afternoon, she having returned from working the fields, Narcissa stuck in some accounting job for the mayor, a boring day and a typical one until she and her best friend met where the emerald grass touches the dark dirt. Their hands locked together, practicing the next step of their tango routine they had been working on, but Zola has different plans with the ring currently resting on her finger, with her father's permission that when the end would be choreographed, Zola is to get down on one knee and present Narcissa with the ring nestled in her palm. The two girls are laughing, laughing as much as friends do, lost out of their minds, drunk off of happiness when they trip over each other, crashing hard into the Earth.

It is Narcissa that asks about the buzzing, they getting closer to the giant elm tree sitting out in the backyard, and when both girls look up, the tracker jacker nest being constructed by the mutts up in the foliage drops down onto them, and the buzzing transforms into a lion's roar, Zola's vision blinded in a mob of vicious gold, and she isn't sure if she swallowed any as the two girls scream, scream, and scream, running into each other before the venom takes its place and the tracker jackers vanish into the sky... but Zola has no idea what the real consequences of that attack would've surmounted to.

Zola wipes away the tears beginning to form at the corners of her eyes. "I don't know how many times Narcissa and I were stung. At least thirty between the both of us, and I'm unbelievably lucky to have survived it," she has to look away, locking her jaw, closing her fist so the wedding ring she would've proposed to Narcissa with shines in the spotlights. "She wasn't so lucky, and she couldn't be saved."

Pollux is close to tears too, a hand resting at his throat, a gesture for comfort. "I'm sorry, Zola."

She shakes her head, unable to catch one as it streaks down her face. "I thought my torment with Panem was over, then," and she looks directly into the camera at this, "I'm starting to think I should have died with the woman I loved instead. It'd be better than this. Anything would be better than this."

There's another ten seconds or so to her interview, Pollux at a loss for words, and she gets up without needing a dismissal. Zola lets the ring fall off of her hand, it clunking onto the stage, and as the ring hits the stage, she not looking back to pick it up, her buzzer goes off.

* * *

_**Mirek Bosco: District 12 Male P.O.V (18)**_

* * *

It has been quite the evening; Mirek at this point simply wants it to be over. With Zola bearing her heart empty on the stage, as Vanya takes her place, he picks something up off of the ground, holding it in his hands. Mirek has not interacted with the dancer all that much, but he's figured him out to be some prudish peacock... none of that seems to exist on stage for his interview, despite the guy knowing Pollux quite well it seems. Vanya's answers are quiet, kept somewhat short without unnecessary elongation, and overall a generally dull and mellow affair, though Mirek is unsure as to why. Bloom goes, she still slightly mad at him for he telling her business to the Careers, but Mirek blames the oatmeal at breakfast that morning even as her glares linger on his skin.

Her interview is charming as can be, she talking about pride and her family and the wanting to go out and see the world, to be an adventurer, and Mirek sees the fire in her eyes, the fire riding along the airwaves, and the unspoken fires that she wishes to cast down upon all of those watching the programming. Mirek claps when she's finished, taking a deep breath, closing his eyes, ridding his mind of whatever could be considered a distraction. The entire Capitol is a distraction, smells of unnatural sorts filling his nostrils, animated laughter making people seem like caricatures than people filling his ears, and then the audience's roaring applause as the final tribute for the 101st Hunger Games is to take their chance at proving why they're so great. Mirek fakes a smile, rather wanting to already be swinging a pickaxe at his least favorite people in the arena already, but he must go through his steaming pile of bullshit first.

Mirek overdoes the handshake with Pollux, nearly taking the other man's arm off and out of its socket, but he keeps the smile still plastered on his face as the audience oohs in enjoyment. He has never felt this good about himself in his entire life, dressed entirely in all black while the watch on his wrist shines a liquidous silver, like a sliver of the moon placing itself on his wrist, accentuating the smoky tones of his skin, the lining of his suit jacket being the same sort of color. Standing in line, however, over an hour and forty-five minute period, listening to these tributes who are just like him give interviews on death, and seeing loved ones perish, and bullies, and leadership and all of this incongruent bullshit that won't matter in less than twelve hours when half of them are all dead has made him realize something.

He hates everyone on both sides, truth be told. He is not so far gone as to say the Capitol is an all good thing, that Mirek needs to kiss their feet for he'd rather let them put a bullet in his brain before that happens, dead serious on that account. However, as he mulls it over, he doesn't regret revealing Bloom's secret to the Capitol loving Aris, as it had been pure entertainment watching two hotheads erupt at one another. There's no way he's rooting for her either, with all the chaos she wishes to cause, all the lives she wishes to steal away when some people are simply caught up in their own blissful ignorance. As Mirek tries telling this to her, it seems like he's hitting a brick wall, for Bloom does not reciprocate the same amount of understanding, something about the poor people in orphanages, yet when he asks her even further than that, she refuses to explain herself. It takes all of his being to not choke her, to not press his thumbs into the center of her throat and watch the life drain out of her.

Something Pollux says, someone who clearly looks exhausted with the amount of trauma he's suffered over the evening, causes Mirek to peek his head up, it resting off to the side and up on his left hand which is curled into a fist. "What's home life like for you?" the interviewer adjusts himself in his seat. "Bloom told us about how she wants to get away from the normalcy, so I'm curious about yours. You like normalcy?"

Mirek nods with the question. "I do, Pollux, I do," He doesn't refer to him as Mr. Aetos as the others have sitting in the same chair as him. The man has yet to deserve the title of respect in being called a Mister. There's only one person Mirek has ever called Mr. in his life, and that man is no longer breathing, all out of his own stupidity.

"Well, what would that normalcy in your life look like, Mirek?"

The tribute's eyes flash, lightning crashing into the iris from the thunderstorm tips of his corneas. He is not, certainly, getting disrespected like this, but then again, he isn't Mr. Bosco. His father had been. "Well, my sister, my mother, and I, have been living without my Dad for ten years. Ever since I was strong enough to wield a pickaxe, I've been the one supporting the family, I've been the one making all the money," he shrugs at that statement. "I like the responsibility, honestly; it doesn't bother me. I just..." he stops himself short. It's been five questions back and forth; he's not going to divulge that to anyone else. No one else deserves to know the truth.

Pollux raises an eyebrow expectantly at him, leaning forward. "What do you just...?" the interviewer hangs onto the question, gesturing out to the audience. "They've all been waiting for you, Mirek, a guy they can't figure out, and you're not going to spill? Come on, you don't want to waste our time."

"I wish my father didn't leave the way he did!" Mirek snaps, sitting upright in his chair, out of his reverie, scaring Pollux half to death, who scrambles back into the comfort of his own white lily-pad. The smile is gone, surely, and the audience's love right with it, but he doesn't care. It's not like anyone's cared to ask how he's been doing, running the normalcy day in and day out, since there's nothing better to do except deal with it. His mother, too upset to remarry, he too young to understand how to even spell the... the r-word, and his sister, holding onto his arm, never seeming able to dry those tears that spill out of her precious dark eyes. Mirek sighs, exasperatedly, running a hand down his face, falling lax back into the chair. "He died when I was eight. One Wednesday morning everything's fine, and the next, someone's at our door, a Peacekeeper, dragging him out of the house and it's the last I saw of him again..." he squeezes his eyes shut, the echo of his own voice screaming at the door for his father to come back, yet the man never does return into the arms of his loving children. "I later got to find out that the reason he was arrested is because he had been caught trying to run some sort of rebellion into the mines," his voice cracks, Mirek giving a weak laugh. "Rebellion!" he shouts.

No one seems to know what to do, least of all the camera crew, but Pollux still reaches over to place a hand on Mirek's shoulder, but the tribute shrugs it off. "Mirek, you don't have to-"

"My father never struck me as that type of man," Mirek says, shaking his head, a rock forming just above his Adam's apple. "He was nice, he was _good. _He did what he was supposed to and followed the rules, yet..." A tear falls down, and he doesn't wipe it away. "Somehow he was just so stupid to get caught up in all of that. The idea of revolutions and rebellions and throwing out the old..." the rock turns into a boulder, and if it keeps up, Mirek knows that he'll be unable to breathe shortly. "Only idiot ever believes any of that will work, instead of them just sitting where they need to. If you stay put, no one will get hurt..."

Though he has no idea why, Mirek is unable to read the clearly shocked and affected expression on Pollux's face. "Mirek, seriously, I..."

"What would it accomplish?" the kid asks, scorn in his voice. "What would any of that do? All the violence and lives lost? All the structures that end up being destroyed, the infrastructure collapsing all because people can't deal with the status quo?" Mirek shakes his head back and forth again, a ferocious hate burning in his eyes. "I didn't lose my father to the Capitol. I lost my father to the idea of a fantasy," his fingers scratch at the leather of the seat, ripping out a button etched into the armrest. "They poisoned his mind and made him believe things that wouldn't ever come true no matter what he did," and if he's gone this far, going further wouldn't hurt. "I hate them all, Pollux. Anyone who stands for this idea of revolution and rebellion, in not allowing things to move on their own, naturally," Mirek locks eyes with the interviewer, and Pollux shudders under the hateful glare. "They killed him. They stole him away from me and ruined the life I could've had..." a few more tears trickle down his face. "I wish they were all dead. Every last one of them, for what they've done..."

There is no need for Pollux to do a dismissal, as the buzzer goes off, and Mirek leaves the stage, blood roaring in his ears, and the audience sobbing alongside him, as just as Mirek reaches the breaking point of the curtain hiding him from the cameras and the stage lights, the tears flow free, he collapsing to his hands and knees, but no one runs over to him as he cries, sobbing, a gasp releasing itself from his throat.

Spotlight hour is complete, and the eve of the 101st Hunger Games draws ever so near.

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**Well... there we have it folks! That was Chapter #20: Spotlight Hour, and yeah, like I promised, it'd be longer than Slaughter's own interviews chapter, and longer than the private sessions; I have no shame. _THIS _is now the longest chapter for a Hunger Games story that I've written. We got POV's from Cyril, Anahita, Sophiana, Ponty, Cambric, Audhild, Zola, and Mirek, with a shit ton of development happening all around: Cyril might be interested in Vivian, the Careers have split, and drama afoot! For the other eighteen tributes that didn't have physical interviews, what were some of your favorites off of the little blurbs I gave? Who surprised you, who did you expect? I'm curious to see!**

**We are just three chapters away from these Games kicking off, ladies and gents, and ooh boy when we get there I can't wait! I just poured myself full steam ahead into this chapter and doing it in two days, and yes, I am exhausted, but that doesn't matter. I really, really - and especially if you're a submitter - would love a review as I really put as much as I could into this to know what you thought, as we're still not at the point where the drama has been amped up to an eleven. Our next chapter, #21: Dreams of Survival, is also focused on the tributes with six POVs, will probably break into the 10k or higher territory, and I have got so much planned for it haha. Thank you all so much for sticking through this and reading all of it, and just... ahhh! I love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	21. Dreams of Survival (Night Before I)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #21: Dreams of Survival. This is going to be one of two chapters where, like in Slaughter, it is in the tributes in a state of unwind, the tributes in a state of relaxing with each other and spilling each other's guts out to one another. I know I am going to cry writing this chapter, and I'm doing some of just so you all can cry with me too and not make it awkward. Last chapter was the Interviews, a massive chapter and we heard from Cyril, Anahita, Sophiana, Ponty, Cambric, Audhild, Zola, and Mirek, as well as Tach, Sage, Rodric, and Maren from the chapters beforehand: these last two tribute chapters before everything goes to shit is going to have the POV's of the twelve left over, a balance of three v three per gender like always... and I'll just say this, some tribute sections just might be longer than others due to the content I know I want to put into them, unless we want like a 20k chapter and I don't want that lol. Now, I hope you enjoy Chapter #21: Dreams of Survival.**

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_~ And so sayeth the Lord, those who weep do so because they've been touched by the Lord's brilliance, and they've realized their mistakes._

**_Satin Spinel: District 1 Female P.O.V (18)_**

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An awkward silence fills the floor. It has soaked itself into her skin, digging around and bumping into the solid parts of her soul. Satin bites off all the cuticles on her fingers, feeling the sting of the air on her exposed skin, eyes searching the dark corners of the apartment for answers that do not exist. Two days ago, just two days ago, she feels like everything is going right, she's on the right track for leading the Careers and winning the Games, and that all the problems in her life will be erased as easy as scrubbing the blood off of her fingers after slicing a dummy open. Then a missed knife throw happens, a curse slips out of her mouth, a golden _9 _flashes under her face, a brat from Four scores some ungodly score of an _11, _and it culminates with the same brat having the audacity to tell her that he's calling the shots, bringing in some scared little kid into the mix, and if she has a problem with it, that she's out of the Careers.

Her? Satin Spinel being kicked out of the Careers? The thing she has worked for her entire life? What sort of fucking drug is that guy on? It only happens because Satin doesn't immediately say, '_No problem_', but rather opens her mouth to protest for what she believes in, and it is Jules's hand on her shoulder - why is she taller than him, she wonders, he's so much shorter than her it is almost comical - that does it for her. She brushes the hand off, sneering, but making sure the look lingers on Cyril's face the longest, before hightailing it out of there while Aris roars his own list of injustices. Satin knows when she isn't wanted, she's seen it happen enough in her own life, but what stings most is Cyril not saying anything. Cyril, standing there, perhaps a bit stunned but she's not sure, she can't read his face. It hurts more when she sees him go straight away to tell Anahita the good news, to go tell her the gospel, but oh no, Satin is expected to go on stage and spill her guts out to the entire nation after being kicked to the curb like a pile of garbage.

She's currently lying on her bed, looking up at the ceiling, rubbing a finger over her knuckle. What would her mother be telling her, if she were to see her? Satin scoffs to herself, she knows exactly what would be being said. Something being thrown, a table probably overturned, and the fact that no matter the obstacle, Satin needs to win those Games to bring more money home so mommy can't get more white powder, and like the good child she is, she'll shake her blonde haired head and do whatever mommy asks of her little girl. Satin closes her eyes, feeling the rising ache of tears threatening to spill down her cheeks, she keeping them at bay. Spinel's don't cry. _Satin _doesn't cry. A moment later, however, something makes her sit up on the edge of her bed, one hand resting just off of the cusp where the comforter ends, she grasping onto thin air.

A laugh.

A male laugh.

_Cyril's _laugh.

Satin slinks off of her bed, checking the analog clock sitting just in the corner on her dresser, the emerald blocked lines staring back at her mechanically, the device giving off a low hum, a sweet hum that helps her sleep. It's late, nearing 1 A.M. She's never known Cyril to be one to stay up late, it is entirely unlike him. The girl, having switched out of her interview outfit, a dress she hates to part with - it had been designed by the hands of God himself, she swears, the way the fabric moves with her as she walks like she's being encased in a cotton coffin - has slipped into a nightgown, aquamarine in color. It isn't her personal choice, nor her favorite color, but if she's having to switch alliances, she might as well switch wearing the same clothes over and over again.

Her feet are bare against the glistening wooden floors, she stepping out into the living room, hanging by one of the pillars against the far wall, while Cyril's laugh echoes around the apartment. He's sitting on the floor, his head resting up against one of the couches, a fresh, quite full glass of a dark liquid - Satin can smell it from here; it's brandy - in his right hand, a cherry balancing on the rim of the glass. She brushes up against the column, a little louder than she'd like, Cyril's head turning over towards the direction of the disturbance. His cheeks are puffy, bright red like the cherry stem, and his face morphs into a gleaming smile. "Hey! There you are! I was wondering when you'd show up!"

She rubs her exposed arms, surveying the apartment. Besides an Avox standing in the corner near the elevator, head bowed down. Satin wonders, for a moment in a lull of silence, how much they hear, the sorts of gossip they know but cannot express. She's always found it strange that none of them, not a single Avox in the history of Panem, has ever written a book about what they've heard. It isn't like they've gotten their hands and fingers chopped off either. Something else also seems strange to her too: the lack of the victors and escorts. Lance, Kevia, Emmett, and Valencia would all be on the floor sleeping in their prescribed rooms, given that the Games are tomorrow. Where were they all?

"Where is everyone?" she asks, frowning, looking about to see that it just Cyril and his silent protector hanging menacingly by the far side of the room.

"Well..." Cyril starts, drooping his head a little, a drawl spilling out of his throat. He's quite drunk, Satin surmises, "My father is drinking himself to death somewhere like he was for Interviews. Lance hasn't shown up all night, Kevia is doing what she normally does, and that is also finding herself a good drink, and Valencia doesn't sleep here,"

"And what are you doing?" is the next question Satin spills, before rolling her eyes at herself. Of course she knows what he's doing. She's not an idiot. Actually, she needs to check up the answer on that.

Cyril smiles at his full glass of brandy. The alcohol isn't in a small glass, nor is it a shot sized one either, he having poured what looks like the last part of it, it being whatever Kevia does not steal for herself, into one of the grand glasses, the kind that Satin fills up with orange juice in the morning. "Like father, like son, right?"

She shakes her head, keeping the frown on. "That's... that's not how that works."

"Do you want one?" her district partner asks. He then gestures around to the empty couches, cheeks shining underneath the faint lights of the living room, basking his acne war zoned forehead in a shimmering cerulean light. "Come on, join me; I'm lonely."

Although any normal or sane person would accept the drink, Satin has a confession to make. She's never had a sip of alcohol in her life, not even champagne at a wedding, which are very common in District 1. She shakes her head. "No, I'm okay," but she does step out into the living room, her skin bristling at the cold contact of the wooden floor. Her nightgown traces behind her, making a light _hiss _at it scratches against the shine. However, as she reaches the couch, resting a hand on the back of the third out of five pillows, Satin freezes. Why would she sit with him? Why the hell would she want to sit with him?

"There's plenty of it going to waste y'know," he gaffs, looking back at the stocked cabinet, but then his gaze passes over towards Satin, and the suppleness on his face falls back to a grim flat line. "What's the matter, Satin?"

Satin's surprised her voice even works as she speaks. "You didn't stick up for me," her voice cracks, Cyril lowering his head in shame, setting the drink down on the coffee table. If he feels shamed, good, that's what she wants him to feel. The shame, the humiliation, and the anger that he's missing out on. "You let Jules kick me out of the alliance and you didn't even lift a finger." It brings her great joy, what Satin says next, "You're a coward, Cyril."

"I thought you were going to fight it," he says, after a pause, as she makes her way around to the couch, wrapping to the front, but she sitting as far away from his as she can. She looks at him, tears starting to well in her eyes, but this time she lets them stay there. She thought Cyril had been different. He may have looked like the odd mix of a werewolf and a Greco-Roman statue, but she found him approachable, likeable, easy to get along with. Instead, she drums him up on the list of failures that have turned their backs on her.

"I tried," she says, a lump forming in her throat. Had Satin had a weapon on her, looking down at Jules and his smug face, with that smug smile, trying to seem all sweet and coddled as he paints himself to be, she'd have cut the hand off, and for good measure, stabbed him in the throat. "It still doesn't explain why you didn't though."

"He's the leader, Satin. I- I just can't-" Cyril sits up, starting to protest, a bit of the brandy sloshing out of the glass and onto the rug. The Avox in the corner notices it, going to grab a wad of napkins, but somehow the Avox stills themselves by the counter as Satin's voice explodes into a squeak, vermillion filling her ledger.

"Can't fight his decisions?" her voice rebounds off of the walls, probably being able to be heard on the eleventh or twelfth floor. She has not gone through hell and back to allow someone in the position to do something in her case just sit by. She's already seen inaction waste away every member of her family... why does it have to happen to her too? "Just because he got the highest score doesn't mean that-"

That sends him off to the races, Cyril sitting up, one of his eyebrows raising upwards too, he pointing accusingly with his pointer finger, rubbing off of the glass. The two of them have probably awoken the entire Capitol by this point. "Wait a minute, you wanted to be the leader because you were aiming for the highest score. How come all of a sudden-"

"It's different," Satin cuts him off, her hair dancing against her back.

"Why's it different?"

"It just is!" she blurts out. The concept of the Careers ever being led by the male from Four first off is already insane, and then to add to the poison, every other alliance member minus the one causing all the ruckus is taller than them! How would anyone take them seriously? How would anyone find them to be a threat? "I've known you for five years Cyril. Five years. District partners are supposed to stick up for one another, and you just let him do it."

"I don't get to make those decisions, Satin! I'm not the leader, and I'm not about to start questioning him!" he motions exasperatedly, the Avox having left the paper towels where they were sitting, returning to his post, still silent, forever dormant, forever unneeded.

"That's what you always do," Satin shakes her head, falling back against the couch, the fight slinking out of her voice. She isn't surprised, not much truly surprises her these days, at least not until this very moment. "It's what you've always done. You always relegate control, you never stick up for yourself," he scoffs at the accusation, but she's pinned him to the wall with one of her knives, and the next one is aimed directly at his heart. She throws to kill; she aims to kill, and she'll continue on doing so until it means she's won. "Well, Cyril, this would've been the time to do it."

He looks away from her, unable to keep up the eye contact, the fight dropping out of his tone too, all that is left being the hanging empty air between them. "I'm sorry, Satin, but he's made his mind up. Me doing saying something now won't help anything." There's another pause, Satin going to wipe a tear away, Cyril taking a heavy swig of his drink, before bringing his attention back to her, fingers drumming against the glass, it being the only sound occupying the room besides their breathing. "What are you going to do now?"

It is what has her the most worried. Satin Spinel has always had a game plan, a map marked with a gigantic X to signify victory, yet she no longer finds the map to be in her possession. There is no game plan any longer, the rug having been ripped out underneath her feet. "I don't know. I don't know if me not knowing scares me or not, or if it should." The first concept that comes to mind nearly brings bile out of her throat, for Cyril is most likely to suggest it too, since it sounds like the most realistic option. "I don't want to ally with Aris, but even if I wanted to, it might be too late." The idea of allying with Aris... Satin would rather go bald, and she's not parting with her hair.

"You have to have a plan, Satin," she can't tell if his tone is sorrowing or meant to be taken in a teaching manner.

She bites on the inside of her cheek, spilling copper into the basin, it flushing over her teeth, garnering one of her possible routes. It sounds like suicide, maybe, but she has to vocalize or otherwise she'll never know, and she can't live her life without getting an answer for it. "Would you be against it? Would you try and stop me if I tried attacking him, Jules? If I went after him during the Bloodbath? I don't think Maren would mind it, and I know I could beat Anahita if she tried to stop me."

Cyril pauses in taking another swig, he looking at her with a manic vibe in his eyes, scoffing slightly, before tilting his head to the side. "You'd risk it? He got an eleven, Satin. He got a score higher than both of us," he finishes the sip, setting the glass down on the table, plucking the cherry off of the rim, which somehow had managed to stay there the entire time, shining like a precious ruby under the lights above. Satin looks at the cherry and sees vermillion spilling down her hands, vermillion of every single tribute who dares to get in her way. "Chances are, that means he's a better fighter than both of us."

"The kid from Eight got a twelve. Does he strike you as a fighter?" Satin asks. That'll be another question she needs an answer to before the kid ultimately dies. What the hell did Cambric Vogel, apparent medical extraordinaire do to score a perfect number? However, as expected, Cyril looks away, confirming her suspicions. "That's what I thought."

"Satin, I understand you have the right to be-" he starts again, but she's not letting him off the hook that easy.

Satin gets to her feet, going to one of the windows, she seeing him in the reflection, his cheeks shining even brighter in the mirror, she looking out over at the lit city, as if someone had thrown different kinds of confetti into the air, letting a tornado take it wherever. "You know, Cyril, it hurts me to admit it, but you're the only friend I have." She has no idea why she's telling him this, even moreso after Cyril scoffs at the pure absurdity of the idea. Satin Spinel? With no friends? "I'm serious! You're all I've got." Her voice falters, she biting on her lower lip. "I had plenty of people who I thought were friends awhile ago, but I got to learn that it wasn't the case. They all liked _Satin Spinel, _or the idea of her anyways. They didn't like _me_," the tears resume again, and Satin knows if any member of her family could see her now... there'd be no point in going into the arena... they'd kill her. "And the moment they all had no need of me, I was tossed out where I wasn't wanted." She looks back at him, Cyril having set his drink down, still unable to keep eye contact with her. "So, to have the one person I thought would stick by me just leave me dry... yeah, it hurts. It hurts a lot." She leeches herself off of the window, but she doesn't return to the couch. "It happened the moment I became the chosen volunteer, and everyone else became jealous." Satin goes to walk back to her bedroom, pausing with one foot resting on the lower level of the living room, the other balanced on the ridged step. "So no, if I want to attack other members of the alliance that isn't you, don't get mad at me."

"I'm sorry," Cyril says, after a pause, and the two lock eyes. Satin sees every single human emotion one could ever experience in his returning gaze, but she has no idea how to feel about that in the slightest.

Satin scoffs to herself. What a bunch of bullshit. "If you were sorry, you would've stuck up for me." He looks away at her again. Cyril Barther, always confirming the worst. "No, you wanted this to happen, and you got what you wanted." Her district partner looks back up at that, mouth parted open, and there's the bringing of crystalline tears in his eyes too. Satin rubs her arms again, squeezing her eyes shut and inhaling, before reopening them again. She doesn't have the courage to give her own answer for it. "Cyril, be honest with me here. Do you think we have a chance?" her voice is impossibly soft. "Do we have a chance at winning, either one of us? The chance of us taking home another victory to District 1?"

"Do you want the honest truth?" he has yet to return the eye contact, she looking at his side face dead-on.

"I want the honest truth."

Cyril picks up his drink of brandy, taking a heavy, long swig, finishing what is left off in the glass, down to the last drop. The very last of the murky brown liquid vanishes behind his set of porcelain lips, before clunking the glass back on the table with the finality of a nail hitting a hammer. "No. We don't," and her district partner finally stares at her in the eyes, a chill racing through her body, and a lump swelling in her throat. "Not a chance in hell."

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**_Aris Lindel: District 2 Male P.O.V (17)_**

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She hasn't said anything, but Aris knows that Maren's gloating to herself, filled with the emotion of glee at his misfortunes. She's probably in her room right now throwing her pillows in the air, cheering and having a ball while he's out in the living room, forehead pressed up against the glass, staring at the idyllic city down below. All sorts of feelings flow through his veins at the moment, but the one he is hit with in a stunning moment of clarity is _anger, _a ferocious anger that builds and builds like a fire down in his stomach, sizzling his innards apart until he retches, but he is not going to retch on himself. He tightens his hands into fists, sneering at his reflection. All the years of training, all the time he has spent in becoming someone bigger than himself, a Lindel _dammit, _and some upstart brat rips him out of the alliance for he's too much of an 'asshole' and a 'prick' and 'unlikable.'

Aris will show Jules what's unlikable, what an asshole does when there's a sword shoved ten inches into someone's gut, twisting the blade, spilling their own offal onto the grainy beach. No one knows how hard it is to be him - it sounds pompous, Aris knows, but he deserves the bit of pomposity in his life after all - living in the shadow of parents who just _get _it. He has no idea how his parents are as successful as they are, but they've been handled handsomely by the Capitol's gracious hand, and they've done enough on the part of the gilded empire... yet he still feels like he's all alone. It is what he's told to do, his father resting a hand on his shoulder, grip firm and digging into the other side of his clavicle, the pressure causing his knees to buckle, his dad's voice low enough on the air, "_Don't mess this up for us. We're counting you._"

"We're counting on you..." Aris repeats to himself, forehead still pressed against the glass, his speech causing the mirror to fog up some. He wipes it away with his left arm, still dressed in the outfit he wore for the Interviews. He enjoys the spotlight being on him for those three minutes, when the entire conversation is on _him. _No one is asking him about the Lindel architects who helped redesign the Nut, no one is asking how Aris Lindel rose to be the top of the 101st Hunger Games Career graduating class a year younger than the normal age. No one is interested in that, his last name drawing all the attention and it being as if he is not even in the room, pushed out of the way for what he considers the old news. The sneer drags itself out even further, he leeching himself off of the window, a slight sweat outline from where he had been standing left behind in the residue.

He begins to pace back and forth, having taken off his dress shoes, still in his dress socks, leaving tracts of cotton and fur and dust in his path as he begins circling the couch. It is eerily quiet on the floor, Ellison having gone to sleep before the Interviews were even over, so Aris has no idea if he did a good job or not with mastering an audience. Personally, he feels he did amazing since he didn't go to his mentor for advice - what advice could a greying eighty year-old give him on pleasing a crowd? Not falling over with his cane? - but after all, a Lindel never needs advice on what to do, they master the situation alone with what speaks to them, and the stars have spoken to him that it looks like he must go through the 101st Hunger Games alone, without relying on an alliance that seems to not even want him. He finds it hilarious, actually, ditching aside two nines for a seven. However, Jules's word is the law apparently.

Aris has a few ways of dealing with the law, and setting the Holy Book ablaze in the other Career's hands seems to be the most viable option.

"He wants to throw me to the dirt after all I did for him..." Aris mutters to himself, shaking his head, taking off of his suit jacket, throwing it into a heap of other sorts of clothing articles in the corner of the couch, it landing softly. "He just thinks he can toss me aside and there not be consequences?" the Career curls his fingers in on each other, closing his eyes as he walks in a shaky square around the living room furniture. He can imagine the hilt of the sword he will grab tomorrow during the bloodbath in his hands, the cold metal causing his synapses to rock off the charts, and then the way he'll slam the sword into that male from Four's body, watching it break like a fissured piece of Earth during an earthquake, a copious river of blood pouring out of him, and he'll dance in the puddle while Jules cries himself to death, slowing ebbing away. "No one crosses a Lindel and gets away with it. No one gets to just walk away from that!" he raises his voice some, probably waking up Maren, but that's right... she's celebrating her victory. "And Maren thinks she can just ditch me like that, you _hateful bitch!" _he spits out, swiveling on his heel and turning his head in the direction of the bedrooms.

He knew he isn't going to get along with her from the moment he lays eyes on her. He's the most disappointed in Cyril though, being one to hold him by the hand and rip away from causing trouble - "_I'm not causing trouble," _he tells the male from One later in the day, focusing on that chiseled jaw, those electric blue eyes, and a shiver runs through him; _he's one hot dude. _"_I'm doing the world a service. No one needs to here her drivel._" Aris runs over the list of tributes he currently wishes to strangle, trying his hardest to keep Cyril off of the list. Maren is a given, the two have not been standing on the right foot at all and he is not crawling back to her, a _Johnson _on his hands and knees and begging for her forgiveness when she's the one who has committed the transgression, as if Aris can do anything wrong. Bloom Estrada, that District 12 nut-job spouting something about rebellions or protest and stoking the fire of some bullshit imaginary club against the winners... hearing people be ungrateful with the society they're in, to see the opportunity handed to them in being in the Games... nothing gets him angrier.

It isn't Anahita's fault that she's on the list, for clearly she must be skilled to score a seven at such an age, and he's seen the way she rips a dummy to shreds with one of her kunai's, but her age is the firewall that stops him from embracing her with open arms. It is her fault, however, with wanting to be in the alliance so damn badly, that her district partner who must be cousins with the rat family thinks it to be a good idea to get rid of the best Career tribute in the history of the Games. For that, he has a slit throat for her as well, while she pleads and begs for life, and Aris already knows what he's going to say, head titled to the side while his wonderful Cyril betrays the alliance, slicing Jules open just to make sure he's dead... "_Maybe you should've thought about sucking, instead._"

"I have done everything right!" Aris tells himself, stomping his foot, but his socks catch on the slickness of the floor, he falling back onto himself, landing hard with a groan. It feels like all of the vertebrae in his spine shattered all at once, Aris curling in on himself, a cheek pressed into the wood, eyes burning with a black blaze for retribution. "I have done everything asked of me, I have done everything my parents asked, everything the Capitol needed me to, and then they give a nine. A nine!" he sits up alarmingly, his hair now thrown into a whirlwind mess of brown and sock fuzz. "They aren't going to accept a D2 victor into the Peacekeepers if he scored a nine..." and that has him bring his knees to his chest. He's always wanted to join the Peacekeepers, it having been a huge goal of his. He's heard the speeches and the lectures, having seen one from Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro before, when the man had been the Head Peacekeeper for Two. Aris knows that is what he wants to do, but only after winning the Games. A Hunger Games victor who is a brute running the Peacekeepers? Is there any better future? "And Jules, Anahita, Bloom, and Maren have all stolen it for me..." he sneers to himself. "They stole it from me!" he roars, slamming his fists into the wood.

They're all dead. They all deserve to die. He is an angel, a paragon of Panem, and yet they're the ones succeeding, the ones who cheat the system - he knows about Jules's little identity secret, it is not impossible to tell, yet somehow the kid bypasses every system in place to keep them out - or the ones wishing to destroy the system. Anahita, thinking she's entitled to having a spot in the Careers, as if that sounds sane in any world. Satin, he's not upset at, but he does laugh when she mentions, before the Private Sessions, the idea of being the leader. Not that he's against a woman leading the Careers, quite far the opposite, but has she looked at who her biggest competitor is? Aris knows he cannot be mad at Cyril, but he's wondering in the moment why the other guy does not stick up for him.

"I'm going to kill every single last one of them!" he says to himself, with a strong finality to his words. He knew what being a Career would mean, what it would culminate to, but he does not expect it to happen so early. Aris gets to his feet, resuming his pacing, body still sore from the fall. "They'll ask, and they'll beg, and they'll plead for me to spare them," he shakes his head back and forth, grinning to himself, "But I won't spare them any mercy, for they didn't spare me either! Soon, soon, soon _I'll _be the victor, and you're going to want to forget the day you crossed Aris _fucking _Lindel!" Aris shouts triumphantly, pointing out at the ceiling, and then turning back to the windows, he breathing heavily, eyes wild with excitement, electricity flowing through his veins. However, something else catches his eye, they both widening when he turns around to look at the person who must've been watching him from the hallway.

Maren looks at him, wide eyed, jaw locked, a look of disbelief on her face. She closes her mouth after a moment of stunned silence shared between the two of them, Aris swallowing heavily. His district partner bites down on her lower lip, exhaling. "Alrighty then... so glad I saw that." Without another word, she turns around, a blanket draped around her shoulders, Maren disappearing back into the bedrooms.

Aris has never wanted the Earth to swallow him whole any more than right now in this instance.

How much of that did she hear?

* * *

**_Seth Cables: District 5 Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

He has yet to open the envelope; all he's done is sit in silence at the kitchen counter with it laying unopened, the letter opener out of his mentor's room lying next to it. The moment the Interviews are all over Sophiana rushes away from him, sobbing her eyes out - how is the girl not all over the dramatics yet? How is she not out of _tears _yet? She seems to cry every single damn day. - and leaving him to take the elevator back up to their floor alone. Seth has a few tears running down his cheeks too after talking about his sister, someone he thinks he'll never tell another soul, yet he spills his entire being out onto the audience. He hates himself for it, that showing of emotion, but he hears the way the crowd sucks in the sadness, they opening their own hearts, and maybe even their wallets...

Seth doesn't like Pollux having a hand on his shoulder. He hates him, he hates a huge chunk of the establishment after all, but it is the establishment back home that are the ones who bring him the money. It is those with the dollars signs in their eyes, smelling of a higher financial status - the breath reeks of onions and bell peppers for some reason - and vengeance hiding behind those dollar signs that fund his pockets, offers he cannot refuse. He looks back towards the direction of the bedrooms, Sophiana's door closed, and the burning rage ignites even further. He shouldn't hate her, he shouldn't, but Seth is unable to run away from it. Yes, her father is in prison, and now, with the revealing of her scars, he's truly not a good person, but where's the justice? Where's the revenge? His sister is gone and no one has filled her place! If her father could be in the Games instead, he'd gladly snap his neck in two.

The unopened letter speaks to him, a heavy whispering voice riding along the air waves, Seth looking at it with a wide-eyed curiosity. When he steps back onto his own elevator, a few of the tributes offering their condolences - Bloom and Zola, if he remembers their names right, but Seth is unable to even look them in the eyes or utter any sort of gratitude... he does not accept gratitude in the form of apologies. He accepts gratitude in the form of payment. - and the tears freshly drying, he takes the elevator back up to their floor in silence. Upon arrival, their escort sitting there with a loaded wine glass in her hands, looking over at Seth with a frown of the ages - he'd kill her too, he'd kill the whole lot of them - before handing him the envelope, saying an Avox flanked by two Peacekeepers had given it to her before the processions down in the Interview hall. Seth accepts it gingerly, frowning to himself. What sort of Avox needs to deliver a letter to a tribute with a Peacekeeper escort? On second thought, why is he receiving any mail at all?

His arms are outstretched towards the piece of paper, he lifting his head, swallowing heavily, before sharply inhaling. His arms are all of a sudden covered in scarlet, as if he had sliced open the veins from wrist to elbow, and an insurmountable bough of stinging causes him to clench his teeth together. A woman's voice, pleading, _begging _rises in his ears, Seth shaking his head. No, none of this can be real. It's all fake, there's no one screaming, no woman begging for her husband's death. No account smuggling money from the Mayor's office, none of it. He lets out a shaky gasp, wrenching his arms back, but the vermillion streams then coat his hands, droplets of blood splattering onto the wooden floor. Seth's breathing increases to a more rapid fire pace, he pushing himself away from the counter, squeezing his eyes shut.

He can picture the day perfectly, the very same day the knife in his hand is aimed for Sophiana's neck, for that _Sophia _whose father caused the end of all things in the Cables family. This woman practically falls prostrate in front of him in a back alley, he thinking it is for some sort of sexual favor, which he says he is disinterested in, a sneer on his face, but the woman's hands leech onto his own, dragging him down towards her, where he can smell her overriding perfume, the stench like lilac flowers and the overcompensating musk of blood, causing him to gag. She has nowhere else to turn, as she knows her husband is stealing from her, but also cheating on the housemaid, allowing the housemaid to dip into the matriarch's personal fund for her kids, some spoiled brats that Seth knows at a distance at school, and she has a single request.

She wants him, Seth Cables, to kill her husband, and if he has to - the woman is willing after all - to kill the housemaid, to stage it like a robbery.

"_Why me?" Seth asks her, in stunned shock at the idea, although he looks down at his pocket where he has the knife sheathed against the pant leg. Pot calling the kettle black?_

_"It's the look in your eyes. I know you've been thinking about killing that Sophiana Delarosa because of what her father has done to you. I know what's in you," __the woman says, hands dragging against the fabric of his pants, and there are tears in her eyes._

He has no idea why he accepts the proposal. Seth still has no idea why, but he blames it on the fact he needs to stab something, to make something bleed... and maybe he needs to actually end the life of a wicked person. It is rather easy, he staging it as being the housemaid coming by for a visit, when in reality it is to see the husband, he lying in his bedroom, eyes closed, talking about someone named Francene, and when it is Seth's voice that speaks, the man opens his eyes, but it's too late, the knife plunged into the man's chest, and just for a good ole' measure, he makes sure to steal the rest of the stash from what the woman told him about, and when the maid does arrive, Peacekeepers are swarming over the house like ants on a discarded apple in the dirt, she and the _wife _who hired him taken into custody, Seth reaping the benefits, laughing to himself against the side of a wall, some abandoned factory, he doesn't exactly remember the specifics.

The other four names on his list he's forgotten. One of them is a teenager his age, he remembers that, hired by the kid's father, the kid threatening to take the father's illegal activities to President Calhoun, and Seth goes to refuse until he sees the amount of money the man offers him. The kid isn't technically even his son, and it is why the father has no qualms about what he asks, and Seth does it, although he certainly hates it, pressing the chloroformed rag against his fellow classmate's mouth and watching him struggle, eyes closing for the last time, and then a quick slice across the neck. Seth vomits into a trash can shortly thereafter, before going in and turning the father in for murder, but since he's recently suffering from trauma, the father's screams and angry cries for Seth Cables being the one he hired for the kid's death signaling his death sentence, and Seth is there for the public hanging, smiling to himself. He has a code, sure. He'll do the job, keep the pay, but the truly wicked will be punished for their deeds.

Seth opens his eyes again, sighing heavily, looking down at his arms and hands. The blood is gone, the blood that he feels in the back of his throat, the blood coating one of his knives back home that he has pressed up against the wall and the left headboard post of his bed, whenever he getting in bed the knife making a squeaked scratch alongside the wood paneling, he freezing every time he hears the sound, before falling back into a laxed state. His fingers go for the letter, a build of bile rising in his throat. As he touches the seal, it emblazoned with the official logo of Panem, some sort of fancy writing underneath it, the initials _L.P. _meaning nothing to him except confusion, the other three come to him, their voices rising on the wind, echoing inside his head.

He'll hear their voices forever and ever, until the end of time, and Seth knows he cannot go back and change the past, what's done is done and he's spilled a lot of blood onto District 5's tainted soil, but if he were to go back and change it all, he'd keep himself rooted there, in that moment of asking the woman why she chooses him, and the action of stabbing her in the heart after accepting the money, for she's the one who needs to be genuinely punished, but he'd also go and finish the husband too for he's truly wicked as well.

No going back.

He doesn't use the letter opener, the assassin prying off the envelope's lip with his bare hands, wrenching the folded up letter free, and it only takes about forty or so seconds for him to read it before gasping, actually _shrieking _and throwing the letter back onto the counter as if it is radioactive. No. _No. There's no way!_

Seth swallows heavily, fear creeping into his soles, as if his legs are made of cinderblocks, before picking the letter up again, scanning its contents once more.

_To whom it may concern, Seth Cables, seventeen year-old male from District 5 for the 101st Hunger Games,_

_Greetings, Seth. This is Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro writing to you. I imagine you've been waiting for something like this for a long time. _

_I won't beat around the bush. Beating around the bush is annoying, and I understand that you'd much rather have me just say it._

_I know what you are. I know what you've done the last few years in District 5, Mr. Cables. An assassin in the dark, killing a bank teller, an account, a little classmate of yours, and some dog breeder. You've killed them all, and somehow, somehow you've gotten away with all of them. But I am here to disprove you of that notion; we've known all along, we wanted you to feel safe in your cocoon of villainy and killing and all of that money you've collected to then strike you down in a glorious fashion. _

_None of this has been an accident, your being reaped into the Games; it was planned, on purpose, and I think you've been thinking about it too. However, there's a loophole for you. If you die in the arena, your crimes die with you, and the guilty parties that had you commit these heinous deeds of murder will still remain locked up. If you are to somehow prevail and be our victor, it does not erase the crimes you have committed. Upon your release from the hospital and your interview with Pollux Aetos, you've be immediately taken into custody and executed for your crimes, of which I and the president know you are guilty of committing._

_However, yes, I am extending some graces to you, Mr. Cables. Madam President Rodney will exonerate you and pardon you from any crimes if you do a favor for her and I, a single simple favor before the Games begin tomorrow morning, which means it must be done within the next hour before anyone notices you're gone. We need you to..._

Seth stops reading, the lump in his throat solidifying to that of a rock, before reading over the sentence one last time, the order given to him by Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro, and no, his eyes do not deceive him. He's given one last target, one final person to assassinate. He looks up from the letter, his throat having gone dry.

"To find and execute victor Valencia Shale of District 1..." he says aloud.

* * *

**_Jason Lacey: District 9 Male P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

He braces the rolling pin underneath his arm as if it is the hilt of a sword, narrowing his eyes to look down the living room floor, picturing a tribute on their knees before him, crying their eyes out, hoping for mercy. They'll receive none, for the son of the mayor from District 9 has none to offer, or so he thinks. Seeing the four flash under his name is a humiliating experience, shame flooding his ankles and rising up to his stomach, bubbling anticipation at Audhild's score going next, and she's scored higher than he has, he looking over at her, trying to mask the look of disappointment that flashes across his face. Her smile connects to his, but he knows that even if there is a grin on his face, the expression highlighted in his eyes tells something different, and Audhild's smile vanishes.

It sits with him the rest of the evening, the low score, that people expect something out of a Lacey, out of a tribute hailing from a royal family in an outer district, but it seems to be that those with money backing their names are falling up short. That is not the only thing Jason has resting on his mind, keeping his eyes shut while waiting for his interview, as Pollux booms and preaches to the whole crowd about honor and duty... if he is to die tomorrow, Jason would have gone his entire life without his father or his mother ever saying they loved him. He knows, he _knows _they do, but not hearing it is what has stuck with him all these years, he expecting it as he hugs his father goodbye, but business is calling the Lacey patriarch back to the office, and his mother doesn't even look at him, eyes turned up in disdain at the dismal failure of a son they've produced... a reaped Hunger Games tribute with no shot at winning. A lone tear slides down his face, and then Jason, with his rolling pin, charges at the imaginary tribute, slashing the rolling pin downwards with a yell at the top of his lungs.

Audhild is asleep, so it doesn't matter how loud he goes for the attack, and the rolling pin connects with a pillow, he seeing the explosion of blood and flesh in his eyes, and it is a glorious sensation that runs through his arms, the taking of a life, but it is all trounced up and bundled together when he hears, faintly, coming from the corner of the room, a soft and sweet voice like a faint strawberry wind blowing through the marigold fields, "Jason...? What- what are you doing?" Promptly, Jason loses his footing, falling face first onto the pillow, the rolling pin falling out of his hands with a loud crash, he groaning for emphasis on impact, rubbing his forehead.

"Nothing!" he exclaims, a tinge of red rushing straight to his cheeks. "Just... just testing the durability of our kitchen appliances!"

He's still dressed in his interview outfit, something sent by his father with a calling card still attached to the hanger - _Keep believing in the ashy wings of the fire bird_ \- and Jason believes the statement on it to be some sort of bad poetry, but in his head he knows what it means. The note he gave to Criston Pellock, whatever that Phoenix had been is what his father writes on the card, his throat going parch the moment he crumples it up and throws it into the trash. Audhild's dark hair is a bundled up mess, she must having just gotten out of bed, she in a little nightgown, periwinkle in color, looking adorable as all get out. She raises an eyebrow at his definitely clear cover up, not believing it for a second, Jason getting to his feet clumsily, brushing dirt off of his knees, and the smile recedes immediately when he gets a glimpse at her.

"Audhild? What's wrong? You look terrible..." and it is the truth, no matter how harsh the statement might be. His district partner, although nice and sweet looking in the nightgown, does have her hair everywhere, her breathing rapid yet shallow, eyes wide and riddled with fear, and she's covered in a sheen layer of sweat, it practically dripping off of her forehead. He reaches her, sitting her down on the couch. Both of their mentors have gone to bed, it being extremely late, but Jason can't sleep, and the escort advises some sort of sleeping pill, but he refuses the notion. The moment the two sit down on the couch, she buries her head into his stomach, shuddering heavily. "Audi..." he says weakly, in surprise, lifting his hands up out of shock before slowly resting them on her trembling form.

She looks up at him, the evident glimpse of fear bright, a chill running through him. "I had a nightmare..."

He nods sympathetically. His younger sister gets them all the time, and whenever she receives one she goes running down to his room, where he hears her feet bouncing on the padded carpet, bursting in to his room, always out of breath. His sister's dreams always encompass something about a foreign family reaching out to her beyond a pale mist, eyes glowing a cardinal color through the mist, but he simply talks her through the terror and returns her to bed. "Yeah, I figured that might happen. Don't worry, Audi, I won't let anything happen to you and-"

"No," she insists, and Jason looks down at his right arm in surprise, his district partner having clamped onto it ferociously, her fingers digging into the underside quite painfully. Audhild shakes her head back and forth, the rapid rate of breathing accelerating. "You don't understand, Jason. I had the worst nightmare I've ever had."

Although it must bring her great pain, Jason unlatches her arms off of him; having her in such a frantic state is not going to calm her down. He leaves her on the couch, going to make a glass of water for her. Jason returns, handing her the glass, which she accepts, but she doesn't take a sip from it. "Start from the beginning," he instructs her, picking the pillow up off the floor, setting the rolling pin on the coffee table, shame still stinging in his cheeks. At his order, Audhild sucks in a great breath, swallowing half of the glass of water without stopping, Jason swallowing heavily. He's never seen anyone do that before, he's _never _seen someone react like that out of a nightmare.

She sets the glass down, and it is as if the temperature in the apartment went down another ten degrees, Jason hugging his sides, her voice impossibly soft. "I saw us all die..." Audhild looks at him, a pang running through him, and she shook her head, buckling her lower lip into her mouth. "I saw everyone dead. Ciphra, Vivian, Jules, Tach, Cyril, Magdalena, Amaris, Ponty, Zola, Roanoke, you, myself..." she squeezes her eyes shut, curling her head to her knees, a few tears sliding down her cheeks. "I don't know what killed us, but all I know is none of us were alive, like I was experiencing an out of body moment," Jason shifts closer to her, putting an arm around her. "All around us the area was on fire and it smelled like sulfur..." he swallows heavily at the description. He knew sulfur only came from one thing, and what that meant. "The flames stretched out for miles, and at a certain point it overtook me." She looks at him with that, Jason righting himself away from her out of disturbance. He's never seen anyone so shaken up before.

"What overtook you?" he asks, fearing the answer. This doesn't sound like a typical nightmare about dying in a Hunger Games Bloodbath, but he's always figured her to have such a dramatic imagination, a pandering to the theatrical side of the dark throes of sleep.

"Death, Jason," another tear slides down her face. "A rolling black wave consuming everything in its path, and I felt it..." she shakes her head back and forth, lower lip quivering. "I felt pure evil radiate out of it, and the wave swallowed all of our bodies whole, and when it overtook my spirit, I felt a stabbing pain shoot straight through my jaw." Audhild's hands go straight to her jaw, pressing up against her pulse. Jason likewise mirrors her actions, feeling the warm hum that is there. The tracker that had been put there after the private sessions. His district partner continues telling her dream, "And the moment I felt that pain I woke up, the tracker deathly hot, and I was drenched in sweat..." Audhild's breathing slows down, she finishing the rest of the water. "I have no idea what I dreamed. I have no idea. Do you?" she looks at him, eyes wide, fear still running through the veins.

He wishes he could take her up in his arms and say everything will be alright, but Jason's never backed down from the truth, he's only backed down from playing his part in it. He cannot offer such consolidation tonight, not after hearing what she's just said. Jason has no idea what any of that could possibly mean. "I have no idea, Audi."

"Jason, I'm scared," she admits, voice breathless, chest rising and falling underneath the nightgown.

"I'm afraid too."

"Are we going to die?"

"I don't know," he reaches over and grips her free hand, but she goes ahead and places the other on top of them. "But I do know that you're not leaving my side, and I'm not leaving yours." Jason plants his feet on the ground, standing up, but still holding onto her. "C'mon, you're gonna sleep in my room, just so you have someone protecting you. I don't want you having any other nightmares alone, okay?" Audhild nods numbly, accepting his hand.

He pulls her up, she surprisingly light, smiling sweetly, heart still drumming underneath his skin. His sister and Audi, he thinks they'd get along perfectly, well... maybe not, given she punched him in the stomach on their first meeting. As the two wander back to his room, she going ahead of him, Jason pauses, turning back around and looking out the windows, the Capitol splayed out in front of him.

Although he is never going to tell her the truth, or say anything else to frighten her, she's not alone, Audhild is not alone in her own sort of nightmare.

He's seen it too, that black wave, and he's seen it consume everyone and everything except him. Hers, she said killed everyone and all in its path.

His blood chills in his veins, ice seizing his heart, breathing shaky.

Jason is going to need more than a damn rolling pin to beat the darkness he's seen.

* * *

**_Vivian Whiplash: District 10 Female P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

She knows he's trying hard not to insult her, the way he's looking at her from across the couch, he sitting on one, she sitting on the other, the two just looking at each other without speaking, without uttering a word to one another. They have yet to change out of their interview outfits, hers starting to stick to her, the worry of tomorrow morning and the foreseeable future being trapped in a dome creeping up the back of her neck, a hissing spider whispering Satan's promises to Adam and Eve in her ear. A seed of guilt churns in her stomach, Vivian closing her eyes.

Their fallout earlier is the worst thing she's ever said to anyone. She has never felt herself get that cold before, never. Perhaps she is the evil that she's heard the Peacekeepers back home talk about, for surely everyone else close to her has expressed that sentiment, it is impossible to go about hearing it.

Rodric drums his fingers on the arm of the couch, he having been doing this for the last fifteen minutes or so. Every so often his eyes will flit up to hers, they locking gazes for a second, before he'll dance them away to something else. However, this time, the two lock eyes and neither one breaks their hold. "Vivian?" he asks, and hearing his voice is somewhat jarring to her, a discordant cricket grinding their legs and wings against a violin string, a harsh cacophony of syllables rutting past her ears.

"Yeah?" Vivian sits up some, trying to keep her face as impasse as possible.

"Can I ask you something?" Always the man of the hour with the questions, the needless, incessant asking of the questions.

"Sure." It is not like someone asking into her past has haunted her before. Vivian took out the tie holding her hair up, running it through her fingers every so often. "_The Tigress,_" she thinks to herself, "_The Tigress who bleeds just the same as everyone else..._" and it is Rodric's question that jars her back to the present, before anaphylactic shock seizes her by the reins, pinning her to the seat.

His dark eyes are wide and curious, but his lips are twitching, fingers drumming at a more rapid speed than what he had been doing recently, before blurting out, "Have you ever killed anything or someone?"

The record that is not playing inside her head comes to a complete stop, Vivian thinking about the first horse she had ever tamed with her brother cheering her on, Tamerin and Maira cheering too, and then all of a sudden it is wiped away in a sea of cascading confusion, carnation pink and riddler green for effect. She scoffs to herself, not quite sure if she heard him correctly. What did he just ask her? "What?"

"I'm serious," Rodric's face is as stone cold as the gargoyle statues above the Justice Center, their devilish eyes staring down at all the lambs lining up on Reaping Day. Her district partner sits forward some, and the scars that blanket his hands popping out in the light, pale rivers of snow twisted and deep fried in a tar ocean. "I haven't. I don't think I ever could." He contemplates that decision for a second, as there's no way Vivian believes in that sort of statement. To survive, in the Games, you kill, it is as simple as that. The girl from Nine, sweet Audhild Olthono, Vivian sees the murderer in her, the darkness that lingers in the generally nice smile, but she senses it all the same. "But have you?"

"Why are you asking me that? Why do you think I've ever even-" the girl starts to protest, going to get out of her seat. This is not the type of conversation she wishes to have with him. She knows why, though, why she allows him to even breach the subject. The eyes. The hair. Tamerin's ghost staring back at her, even though Tamerin is very much alive and- "_You'll just make things worse,_" she tells herself, collapsing back down into the chair, the red ribbon falling from her hands.

"You got a ten, and that's a pretty high score for not being a Career whose trained. You've admitted to me about being 'The Tigress', who the Peacekeepers are hunting," Rodric explains, she incapable of reading the expression on his face. "Peacekeepers don't just hunt anyone in Ten, y'know," her district partner scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, teeth exposed in a _'I'm sorry, but not_ _really' _sort of manner. "And besides, yeah, you strike me as someone who might've done it before."

If he thinks there's a chance in hell... "I don't have to tell you anything, Rodric. I... it's not for you to-"

"You don't have to tell me, if you have or not." he eases up on the gas some, holding out his hands in a defenseless position, but she sees the glint in his eyes, that need for self-discovery, the need for her to bleed the same pain and anguish she's ripped out of him by taking hold of everything he holds dear. Perhaps she deserves it, perhaps she needs to go through with it. "But we've been sitting here looking at one another for the last hour not even saying anything, and I can read it on your face. I can see the guilt," he licks his lips, sighing. "So I'm asking you, have you?"

Clearly there is no point in lying. Vivian pinches the bridge of her nose, the other hand tightening its grip around the arm of the couch, fingernails ripping up the leather just in case she needs something physical to throw. "Yeah, Rodric. I have." She looks up at Rodric, his face warping into one of shock, her voice impossibly soft. "Twice."

"Twice?" the look on his face is almost comical, but, given the circumstances, Vivian knows the expression means something else entirely. "I- I didn't actually expect you to give me an answer but..."

"One of them was the old Head Peacekeeper Conan," she admits, and both hands are starting to sweat, she running them down alongside her pant legs. Conan McIntosh, the Head Peacekeeper of District 10 for fifteen years, razor sharp nose, solid gray eyes always judging and calculating, dark brown hair the color of an ox's coat, and a cigar or beer bottle always between his teeth. "I mean, it wasn't exactly a secret that he liked people my age or a bit older, y'know Both guys and girls, right? Everyone knew about it, but no one wanted to do anything." A shudder ripples through her, the concept of Conan's exploits, something everyone knew, something no one ever did anything about, for if someone were to speak up, it meant the firing squad at dawn the next available weekday. "I had a girlfriend and a boyfriend for awhile, their names were Maira and Tamerin..." Maira, with her sweet eyes, and Tamerin with his mahogany colored hair, his melodic voice. "Conan had them both over at his place sometimes, he would... he would..." Vivian shakes her head, gasping for a breath, her entire body feeling as if she's been submerged underwater.

"You- you don't have to continue Vivian, I get the picture," Rodric tries overtaking her in the conversation, but he's got her started, and there's no way to make her stop.

"One day I found out about it, what Conan had been doing to them..." Vivian swallows heavily, eyes locked onto a white world no one can see. "Maira had bruises on her arms, and Tamerin had a black eye. At first, they wouldn't tell me who did it, but I wasn't letting them off the hook." She remembers raising her voice, Maira slinking up against the wall, Tamerin unable to maintain eye contact as the name of the Head Peacekeeper slipped free, and the Vesuvian rage that courses through Vivian's veins. "The anger I felt in me at the idea of my loved ones being abused by that sick bastard... I couldn't just let that happen to them." she looks up at Rodric, and even if he were to lie, he'd admit the same thing about those he loves. "They both begged me not to do anything, but I wasn't going to let it continue." Vivian drums her fingers against her pants. "He liked to leave his door open to his house, he never wanted one of the finer homes the Capitol offered, and that was just common knowledge."

Rodric shifts uncomfortably in his seat, but he's unlocked the gates of Tartarus, and she is not going to just let Kronos escape into Hades without there being consequences. "Vivian..."

It had been a year and a half since then, but Vivian recalls the memory like it had been just yesterday, it sinking into her skin with the cool autumn breeze, the leaves on the trees starting to change from that emerald green to the succulent cherry and sunburst orange. "I snuck in, well, by going through the front door. I was just gonna rough house him, if I could, that's all, I swear," Vivian picks the red ribbon back up, wrapping it around her knuckles. Conan's house was tinier than her own, the TV left on, static bursting across the living room, fridge open, with six beer bottles strewn about. "He was beyond drunk, and saw me looking for him in his bathroom, beer bottle dropped to the floor and everything." His wide eyes, darkening with lust. "He thought I was Maira and automatically rushed at me."

She breaks the story for a second, stopping the sob that rises from her throat.

"Vivian, please don't-"

"I panicked and freaked out, but I still wasn't prepared for him to actually rush at me, y'know?" Vivian shakes her head fiercely, blizzard bands knocking back and forth against her neck. "He pinned me to the floor and tried to get my pants off, while trying to get his off too, but his drunkenness slowed him down," another shudder rippling through her. "Conan was screaming at me, calling me a whore and- I was too scared." Vivian has never felt her voice crack before. "He had left his gun out of the holster on his nightstand, and all I needed to do was grab it." Her mouth wide open in a scream, Conan's drunkard voice yelling belligerently, her hands around the butt of the gun, and her shooting him dead. "I've never used a gun before, but I was not going to let him do what I knew he would do, and so I shot him." The gunshot echoes in her head. "I've never freaked out more in my life, Rodric. He had a nice watch, and I knew Tamerin's family was in some dire straits, so they needed the money." Somehow, through all of it, this is what affects her the most, robbing a dead man. "I sold the watch, gave them the money, but he and Maira were terrified at what I had done and refused to see me."

She never even got to say goodbye.

"You can stop, Vivian, please, just stop, I-" Rodric pleads with her, getting to her feet.

"The Peacekeepers in the district would've ruled Conan's death as a suicide, but they noticed the stolen watch." Vivian's voice has gone soft again, as if her diaphragm had been stolen right out of her chest. "That was my second kill, a Peacekeeper who put some two and twos together, and I couldn't let anyone in my family by him or his reaches again." It had been much easier, without the panic and the cursing and the heartbeat, a simple shot to the head. "Because of me doing what I did, I lost both of my lovers, and now I'm a vigilante to the district, for terrorizing the homes of Peacekeepers and stealing their valuables."

That's it. That's the story, all of it, right there, and he, that _fucking _Oxford just had to go digging.

"Vivian, I would never have known... I would've never guessed, I-"

"It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter Rodric. I can't get close to anyone, I can't let anyone get close to me, because who knows what else I might have to do," Vivian shakes her head. Pushing him away, pushing Maira and Tamerin away... The Tigress keeps no friends, has no family, simply on principle.

"I'm sorry," Rodric apologizes, his voice entirely genuine, and there are the fledglings of tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.

Her voice is ice cold, the harshest winter she could ever summon spilling out of her mouth, Vivian getting to her feet, one fist curled about the ribbon. The damned ribbon, marking her entire being, her entire monstrous being. "You happy? You happy you know? I'm just a monster, aren't I?"

"No, you aren't, Vivian-" he starts, but she has had it. She's gotten close; Vivian Whiplash never gets close.

"I told you to drink yourself to death. I hate the idea of a rich person exploiting others." Speaking it out loud, it makes it sound even worse. "I'm- I'm a murderer, a thief, and I deserve a lot worse than what I've gotten, but I'm not going to let the arena kill me either; I'll do whatever it is I need to do to survive, and that means despite me telling you all this, Rodric, it means I'm gonna have to get through you too."

Leaving him in the thaw of his own silence, surprise, stupefaction and more, Vivian hastens to her bedroom, tears flowing free, and the gunshot that brought her world to heel still echoing in her ears.

* * *

**_Amaris O'Hara: District 6 Female P.O.V (18)_**

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This is it, the deep breath before the plunge. She feels it creeping up on her like a phantom, Amaris having seen enough death to know the difference between a ghoul and an actual devil, such as the one resting up against one of the pillars in the living room. Wearing the Peacekeeper uniform is the dumbest idea she's conjured up in a long time, she ripping it off of her the moment she returns to her floor, she and Ponty riding in silence. Criston congratulates the two of them on their hard work, retiring for the night, but just a little while later, somewhere around midnight, the elevator doors close and Amaris awakes from her light sleep, shrugging on a light jacket and stepping out into the living room.

Ponty is by the window, staring out across the Capitol, but she keeps her distance, back where she knows she isn't wanted. He's made that quite clear over the last couple of days.

"Where'd Criston go?" she asks.

"Out," her district partner says immediately after, still keeping his gaze out on the city, the dancing lights of the partying Capitolites bright on the night sky. Ponty takes a deep breath, she seeing his sturdy frame rise and fall under the shroud of darkness in the corner. He's unbelievably handsome, but the idea of being with someone who wishes to puke in her very presence - something she's never quite experienced before, Amaris might add - has done wonders on her confidence, and it repulses her too, the concept of being with someone who hates her.

"Did he say when he'd come back?" Amaris shrugs her hands further into the pockets of the jacket, it being freezing on the floor. She steps down the elevated pathway that keeps the living room lower than the rest of the apartment, but she does not move any closer. She knows that she's often put on the perspective of not giving a crap about anyone or anything, which is partially true, but Criston did win the Games at one point, and she'll still need his advice now more than ever with the eve of the Games, and he's disappeared.

"No, and I don't care." That doesn't sound like Ponty, the dismissiveness, but she senses his disquiet ever since Pollux humiliates him on the stage, dealing with fellatio and all of that, but it has her cracking up in her spot in line, to follow directly after him in that dumb uniform.

Amaris moves closer, still on the other side of the couch, reading his body language. His arms are crossed over the other, pressed against his chest, neck tight, distended, tense.

He has something he wants to say, she can tell.

"What is it, Ponty?" Amaris asks, genuinely curious. She has no idea in what universe, on what stance of the law it says that two district partners who cannot physically stand each other have to be unable to hold a conversation with the other. So far their track record is 0-2, which has her wince, pressing a hand back to her face, the spots where he's struck her as she tries to hit him... perhaps the laws of the universe ordained something correctly for once.

Her district partner shifts his head over in her direction, a pang of emotion running through her. Shock, crippling shock, at the dead look in Ponty's eyes, the general vibrant tenacity that has his eyes glow lustrously emerald green are tempered dry, like a cut glade of grass lying on the sidewalk. "You did a good job tonight," he says. "Better than me at least."

Does he strike her for a fool? Amaris bulks the left side of her mouth with her tongue. "You're lying. You're just blowing smoke up my ass." The two of them have become attached to their tango of lies it seems, but he's keeping one foot stuck out so she can trip over it, collapsing into a heap on the floor, scraping both of her knees. She's worked with some deplorable Peacekeepers in her heyday, but she's seem to have gone on her last excursion the moment the escort draws her name out of the Reaping bowl.

"No, I'm not." Ponty's jaw locks, and his eyes blaze a soulful wildfire over in the corner.

"Ponty, I physically can't stand you," Amaris slinks closer over to him, still shivering. Perhaps she's asking to be slaughtered right here in this jacket, feet frozen solid by the wooden floor, but she'd be welcoming it, the change of pace, the feeling of blood pumping through her body to try and keep her alive. It wouldn't work. "And you physically can't stand me, so it's best we don't lie to each other about how we feel."

"I don't see why I can't tell you that the Capitol loves you." he looks at her, moving his hands up with a frown. She can only see his eyes clearly in the shadows, but she can tell he has tensed up. One hand absentmindedly goes back to her belt where she'd keep her gun, coming up empty, fingers grasping for nothingness. Of course. Why would she still have her gun? They stole that from her too, along with her freedom. The they? Amaris isn't sure. "You scored unbelievably high, the audience ate your interview up, you're a Peacekeeper who is strong and can clearly fight... you don't have to be such a bitch." Ponty shakes his head in disdain.

She absorbs what he's said, but she doesn't listen to it. "Well, if the entire world could stop thinking you and I would be some sort of power couple, I'd appreciate it."

Why is that the case? She does not like him and he doesn't like her! She tries to choke him out in their first encounter, and on their second, he slams a staff against her face. It doesn't exactly speak a match made in heaven, does it? Ponty's tone i sarcastic, telling, dripping with liquidous venom, the same tint as his eyes, she physically seeing it ebb off of him. "If you could stop pretending to be something you're not, I'd appreciate it too."

Amaris barks a harsh laugh. Pretending? Pretending about what? "What are you talking about?" He removes himself from his spot on the wall, walking back into the light, she taken a bit aback by his appearance, dark sunken in lines pulling his face towards the floor, and her next reply is a bit softer than what she wishes for. She is a strong person, an O'Hara who does not balk in the face of danger or opposition; Amaris certainly does not pretend. "I'm not pretending anything."

"Just because you're a Peacekeeper doesn't make automatically an evil unlikeable person," Ponty says. It is clear he must be high on something. "It's what you do with the position, and you've already told me you take pleasure in killing people, and-"

"Guilty ones, Ponty! I only kill evil people! Guilty ones!" Amaris shouts at him, interrupting Ponty, and probably waking the entire damn floor, but who cares. She has to get this off of her chest, she has to tell him, tell the world, but it doesn't come out on stage, with Pollux bearing down on her. "I don't just go and kill innocents!" The idea of actually pulling a trigger and shooting of a mother of five, pregnant with a sixth on the way, it nearly has her throw up all over Ponty's dress shoes. It is why she refuses the offer the Careers give her, as she can see the dimming light in Aris's eyes. He takes a joy in the death of someone like Audhild, and she's already shed enough blood back in Six and Eleven. "Ever since I was a little girl, I knew something was off about me."

"Yeah, psychosis, Amaris," Ponty says.

"Shut up, Ponty, I'm serious!" her face burns in frustration. He just doesn't _listen!_ "You know they always say someone has to experience trauma at home to feel like they've got a vendetta to pay, but I have a good home life. Why did I feel angry? Why did I want to hurt people?" That feeling has lingered in her system ever since she had been about six or seven, seeing the violence of the Games on the screen for the first time, it being actually Kevia Janelle's victory, the throat of some outer district tribute being sliced open that sends a rivet of excitement to her arms. "It's why I joined the Peacekeepers, getting to express that hurt onto those that actually deserved it, on those who've stolen or killed or murdered, and I've been a good soldier about it too."

Ponty's eyebrows rise up in disbelief, he leaning physically towards her. "Do you hear yourself, Amaris? Do you have any idea how psychotic that sounds?!"

"I'm just doing my job!" Amaris shakes her head. She's asked by the Head Peacekeeper of Six to hunt down criminals and freedom fighters, but she takes no pleasure in it as some of her comrades, quelling the desire for a mass murder spree, but Ponty'll never get it, he'll never understand, being stuck in his precious bubble of blowing stained glass and money. "I know you can't possibly understand that or where I'm coming from."

He sneers at her, such a hateful look, it rippling through her. "You hate me because I don't fear you, that I'm not one of those people you hunt down and interrogate and torture."

"I don't hate you-" she tries correcting him.

"You're lying to me! Face the _fucking _facts, Amaris!" he roars at her, getting directly in her face. She takes a step back in shock, startled by the outburst. He is genuinely a big guy, seeing his anger full front a jolt of electricity to the system, the hair on her arms standing up on end. It has always been in controlled, quelled bursts, like her own, not expanded freely. "No one here likes you because you're evil! No one here likes you because of what you've said and what you've done!"

"It's who I am!" Amaris shouts back at him, but deep down, the O'Hara secrecy unlocks itself, and she feels the tears starting to spring forth. Is that what she is? Evil? A monster?

She has no idea what is running through Ponty's head, the way all of a sudden his brow falls back down, hands laxing to his sides, and he falling back onto the wooden pillar, staying in the light, and the next time he speaks, his voice is quieter than she's ever heard it. "You can change. You don't have to be like this, Amaris."

"No I can't. I can't change who I am, Ponty." She is a girl with the desire to bring harm to those around her, and the Peacekeepers have given her an outlet. No one else suffers, she takes her paycheck, fires the clips in the round offered to her, and she goes home for the day. There's nothing else on top of that, the added necessity of identity or the possibility of her faking it. He's on some sort of drug, Amaris backing away a few steps. She should have never gotten up and out of bed. She should've stayed asleep, with the vision of her last charge peppered with bullet holes, lying on the floor of the interrogation room, the pistol she holding onto still smoking forever tattooed to her eyelids, as she's seen that for the last three weeks straight, unable to dream about anything else.

"Why do you still do it? You served the Capitol faithfully for years, yet they still kept you in the reaping bowl," Ponty's hands rise and fall against his legs. "You weren't even in District 6 for half the time, and yet they still made you come back every year." He rubs at his brow, his breathing calm and collected, his chest slowly rising and falling. "I heard you, when you were reaped. You were pissed, you couldn't believe it." Ponty leeches himself away again, walking directly over to her, no longer keeping the inherent knowledge in effect. "All you've done, and Bonnie has spit in your face. They didn't even try to disguise it."

"You have no idea what you're talking about," Amaris rasps, but she's too late to stop the tears that trickle down her face.

"You can drop it, Amaris. You don't have to pretend to be someone you're not," he says calmly, keeping his eyes on her. "You don't have to be their slave any longer, cause clearly they won't fight for you when you are fighting for them." Ponty picks her hands up in his, his hands surprisingly warm, hers ice cold. "Amaris, they're going to _kill you_."

"You... you're just messing with my head-" she shakes her head back and forth. This is him trying to get to her drop her guard before he stabs her, or something. This is a ruse. A magical conjurers trick. Not- not the truth.

"I can help, Amaris. I can help you."

"No," she drops his hands. "No, you can't." Her voice cracks once more, Amaris inhaling sharply. "You can't help me."

"I _can. _I know who and _what _you are," he insists, but she's backing away from him, nearly falling over herself.

"That's impossible, Ponty." Amaris turns away from him without a second thought, one of his hands gently touching her shoulder, but she doesn't stop to let him try and convince her of even more lies. She steps back onto the elevated spot, pausing before she rounds the corner, and there's the inevitable look of heartbreak on his face, and there are tears streaming down both of their faces. Amaris chokes on an anguished sob. "No one knows who I am."

The divide between the two of them deepens, and her heart slams shut, never allowing another soul in, her dreams of survival buried underneath her booted heel.

* * *

**Well everyone... *shaky breath* that was Chapter #21: Dreams of Survival, and I can't tell you how many times I cried while writing that, I lost track. I _fucking _love these tributes, I swear it, holy hell. So a lot just went down, more than anything I think in a tribute chapter, and it is still not as long as the Interviews, but pretty darn close haha, and there's less P.O.V's too! Satin, Aris, Seth, Jason, Vivian, and Amaris have had their second point of view, and so much has become unearthed out of their backgrounds, their storylines, and I am making sure the aftershock effects of each earthquake rumble underneath your feet, because God, the canvases I was given to work with are incredible. **

**Next chapter, which actually I don't think will be 14k, probably somewhere between 9-11k is the last six tributes we haven't gotten to hear from yet for their second go around, and it is really just a process of elimination: Magdalena, Roanoke, Bloom, Jules, Ciphra, and Vanya is the order I'll be going in and that means we're so close, we're so close I can taste it. Please, oh please review, I think this might be the best chapter I've ever written in my life - I say it too often - and I also know I bet opinions on tributes are switching _everywhere. _I cannot wait to see you all again for Chapter #22: Partisan in Death, and things will explode even more, and I promise, the dramatics and the crying won't be as heavy next time. I love you all so much! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	22. Partisan in Death (Night Before II)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #22: Partisan in Death. Last chapter, #21, was, well, longgggg and I still have no idea whether or not to be sorry about it, seeing POV's from Satin, Aris, Seth, Jason, Vivian, and Amaris which had me sobbing into my hands uncontrollably a lot. This chapter has the last six POVs I haven't covered a second time since their introduction, they being, in this order: Magdalena, Roanoke, Bloom, Jules, Ciphra, and Vanya, and then moving on past that, and I'm so excited. Okay, I'll be honest here, I have no idea where this word count will land as Bloom-Vanya have a lot of ground I really need to cover in their POVs especially with what I have planned, so I apologize prehumously (it's not even a word lol) and I hope you enjoy Chapter #22: Partisan in Death.**

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_~ And so sayeth the Lord, always be prepared to be summoned for battle; your spear should be by your side at all times, or otherwise you have failed as a solider of Heaven._

**_Magdalena Bertha: District 8 Female P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

It is a souring experience, to know that this time the Peacekeepers have caught her and this time she might not be escaping their clutches with just scars lining her arms and her back. She realizes this, like a lightning bolt to the forehead, whilst sitting on the couch, nibbling on yet again another straw. Magdalena teethes around the edge of it, biting away at the bits her teeth can snag onto. She spits out some of the pieces that get stuck in her teeth into a white soup bowl sitting next to her. The moment she and Cambric return back into their floor after waiting so long for their interview, it is the first place she rushes too, taking off her stupid heels, but she's yet to slink out of the velvet dress she's wearing, which sparkles underneath the mood lighting they've set. Cambric is lying on the other couch, distended like one of the logs they currently have resting in the fire place, head propped up on a pillow. Occasionally his eyes will shut, and then he opens them again, this generally happening at the sound of another straw wrapper falling to the floor, already in a snowstorm pile of paper.

"Why are you biting up straws?" he asks her, with his eyes closed, exhaustion creeping in his voice.

Magdalena shrugs. "It's that or my nails." She has no idea where the habit arose from, she having been a chronic nail biter - a lack of nails means being unable to pick locks if the key she has doesn't work, or if she is not willing to use a vase and smash open the windows - from the age of four, before the concept of thievery is known to her. A pack of the straws from one of the drawers next to the silverware sits against her other leg, stuck in a canteen, about thirty to forty over them, and she has no idea how much plastic she might swallow down her throat while the hours of the night creep along.

Cambric accepts the answer, shrugging to himself, before closing his eyes once more, cradling the pillow like it is his last lifeline. Magdalena smiles to herself, looking at her district partner. She knows that everyone is paying attention to them now - she absentmindedly runs a finger over one of the scars that is at her navel, a piercing one that she can still feel the knife that created it vibrate at times - with their brave or stupid, depending on who Magdalena asks, decisions on stage. A chill runs through her when Cambric gets in Pollux's face, but it is a chill that disappears as soon as it arrives. She has never really thought too much about being in the Capitol, or what the Capitol is like in relation to the treating of the districts. Sure, she's never killed anyone before, and she isn't what she'd call dirt poor anymore, but it confuses her all the same, where Cambric is coming from. He's seen worse than her, he's seen far worse.

She's felt worse, though, so she has him beat.

Her leg still slightly hurts just below where she had scrapped her knee really badly, just yesterday in fact, the sting sometimes causing her to pause. A panicked thought laces her mind momentarily, her face flushing, but Cambric does not see the lapse of confidence, with his eyes closed and all. Will the injury diminish her running capabilities? It is a possibility, one she has tried to not cross out in her head, but it's there in the back of her mind, fresh, now, when looking at her exposed legs, her dark skin glowing under the lights. Magdalena looks back at Cambric again, smiling to herself once more. She genuinely likes him, and she knows he genuinely likes her, although their first few interactions might have been a bit frosty. There may be some remnants of disdain hiding in his gaze, especially as he knows she doesn't give what she steals to the poor, taking from both sides alike, but Magdalena knows nothing other than it being survival of the fittest, survival of the smartest, and certainly not survival of the bravest.

Magdalena scoffs to herself, discarding the straw currently in her mouth, taking another one out of the pile, holding it in her hands like a cigarette. "You know what's funny?" she asks, aloud, and Cambric's eyes open immediately. Perhaps he hadn't actually been falling asleep, a thought that startles her suddenly. She writes him off to quickly, she supposes, but she knows that he knows he isn't a fighter and scoring a twelve had been some genius act of the heavens, not due to lethality or skill. He doesn't say anything, but he does nod, prompting her further. "I actually wanted to be a part of the Careers," Magdalena laughs to herself and the ridiculousness of the idea. Cambric sits up to one elbow, raising an eyebrow, they matched in feelings on this. "I thought I was going to make my way through into the alliance and become something."

"You, a Career?" Cambric repeats, in disbelief, and there's a humor glinting in his eyes.

She shakes her head too, letting out a raucous peal of joy. "I know, I know how stupid it sounds!" Magdalena rips off the wrapper of the straw, letting it fall to her feet. "I thought I was going to get such an exceptionally high score that they'd have to take me in and well..." her voice trails off, eyes doing so too, Cambric nodding lightly, shrugging his shoulders once more, and closing his eyes, falling back against the pillow. That had been her thought process, genuinely, but when Ms. Fallorne raises an eyebrow at her, skepticism marking her face, Magdalena's hopes shatter like a falling star. It seemed to her though, being on the outside looking in, that the Careers were not allowing outsiders from other districts into their ranks after both tributes from Six refused the advance, and instead, the kid from Four decides it to be best to kick people _out _of the alliance.

Magdalena has never laughed harder in her life, it causing her to giggle now.

Her gaze passes over to Cambric. He had not been her first choice as an ally, she looking at the gilded, immortalized Careers as something to aspire for, _the thing _to aspire for, to be, and she's dropped down in disappointment instead. However, the moment she falls from the Gauntlet, bleeding profusely, he rushes over to her, and she's not so sure any other district partners would've done it for their counterparts had they taken a tumble. They know about there being Capitol medics on stand-by, should, lord forbid, something happen, yet he comes riding to her aid regardless. Magdalena can't hate him, she really can't.

But she can kill him.

All of a sudden, feeling the odd crunch of plastic underneath her teeth does not warm her body anymore, nor does it calm the nerves. She spits out the last few bites into the bowl, almost like a collection of sunflower seeds, setting them aside from her onto the coffee table, putting the other collection of straws there as well. Magdalena tucks her legs in underneath her, looking down at the mess she's made. She'd clean them up, but she doesn't want to move. She'd rather stay seated forever, stay seated in this moment of hearing Cambric, who has actually fallen asleep now, by seeing his body rise and fall under his soft breaths, and not have to look head on at the horror trying to grab her by the face. The reality of what she had just thought is the one she's trying to evade, but him snoring and breathing lightly keeps ebbing her attention back towards him, a tide she is unable to outswim.

She likes him, she genuinely likes him, and she'd do anything for him that he'd do for her as partners in the arena. Magdalena is unsure if it is because she has no other choice, or this is exactly what she wants. Back home, there's been a few scrapes and bruises here and there, trying to escape the hands of justice - in Panem, that is the stark black leather of Peacekeeper gloves, their commandeering and booming voices echoing against brick walls while chasing criminals through the smog covered streets of Eight - but it has never been anything lethal. She has yet to be caught since that first whipping, those scars a badge of honor, a medal given to her by her parents for her dealing in the absolute truth that she has only herself out there looking for her in the world. The reaping bowl has caught up to her first, however.

Magdalena likes him enough, surely, he having opened his heart and exuding a grace that no one would give to her back home if they saw her in need, but the bitter taste in her mouth comes back, the same kind she tastes on her tongue when Cambric leans into Pollux's personal space, talking of dead bodies and the blood all Panemians share... he's just a stepping stone for her survival. She slinks off of the couch, going over to the opposite corner of the one he's currently laying on, there being a blanket placed on top of rim of the couch. Magdalena picks it up, it being heavier than she expects, before draping it over Cambric, slowly, slowly but surely. She wants him to remember, to know, that the same soothing feeling as the blanket is the cold embrace that Death will kiss him with, when the plastic sheet goes over his body signifying his end.

The girl from Eight stands over her partner, chewing on the inside of her lip. She can picture it now, as clear as day, without any interruptions, the concept of his final moments. Magdalena knows that when the time is right for them to part ways, as she'll do it in the night, a thief always traveling under the lone company of the stars, that the blade will dive down into his temple, and back out. Just once, only once, for she's not sure if the contents of her stomach will survive a second dipping into the pot of life. With the blade stained in Cambric's blood, she'll stash away, the cannon will fire, tears will be shed, and Magdalena Bertha will be one step closer to home.

She leans down closer to him, brushing one of his curls out of his eyes, now this time her smile turning into a frown. Damn the Capitol. Damn the Games, damn all of it to hell; he doesn't deserve to die, but neither does she, and because of that, he does _deserve _it.

"Sweet dreams, Cambric," Magdalena whispers to him, but whether or not she's actually heard, no idea. "I'll see you in the morning."

Without taking a second look behind herself, she turns away from the couch, heading to the bedrooms to slink off her velvet dress.

She does not cry, as the reality sets in, the frizzling of the lightning bolt that strikes her in the head dissipating outwards in bands of knowledge that glow a luscious emerald green.

Her tears have been dried up long ago, from her whipping, and Magdalena Bertha cries no more.

Cambric Vogel's demise will, unfortunately, not be the cause to bring it back, either.

* * *

**_Roanoke Arkus: District 7 Male P.O.V (13)_**

* * *

He can still feel her hand on his shoulder, she towering over his tiny frame, having been sitting on the ground, Roanoke looking up at Sage with expectant eyes, and then when her hand leaves his shoulder, there's nothing else radiating in his heart expect hatred. Roanoke didn't know he could feel the emotion of hate. There are no tears in her eyes as she says this, as she does her heinous deed, and Roanoke feels the sting still, no matter how hard he tries to fight it. He rests his head down on the counter of the bathroom sink, the chilled granite slowly sending waves into his forehead, pulsating motions of coolness and relaxation, but the rest of his body is engulfed in flames, on fire, scalding hot, and the tears he cries, the tears Sage swears she does not know how to expel, they are hotter than the core of the sun.

Roanoke wonders if it is because he's scored higher than her, from her stupid mistake at throwing an axe at the Head Gamemaker. He does not dare say it aloud, afraid she'd slap him silly across the face, but it is the truth... jealousy of a thirteen year-old, could you believe it? He looks at himself in the mirror, skin tanned and browning, his tears a saline drip through the fade, amber eyes blinking through the murky haze of melancholy. His calloused hands grip the edge of the counter so hard he's sure he'd break it, but what would he do with the broken piece? What could he do with the broken piece? The door to the bathroom is locked, and he's shut his bedroom door, going to bed far earlier than what he is originally anticipating, the traitorous district partner - "_Not district partner," _he thinks to himself, "_The district dead meat,_" Roanoke sneers to himself in the mirror, shocked by the ugly expression combing his features - practicing her axe swings with a lone candlestick. He wishes she'd fall on it and impale herself.

"_No you don't,_" he thinks to himself again. "_You wouldn't want her harmed in the slightest."_

"Not true!" Roanoke growls to himself.

It is the people in life that are good, the people in life that are wonderful that pay the price. His mother, with her arm taken clean off by the sawblade, too lost in the thaw of shock to even scream; he's too lost in the thaw of rage to even scream, to try and shatter the mirror, but it'd only show his brokenness back. He thought that Sage would be different, just from how he sees her, that sweet smile, her melodious voice, and that temper where he needs it to come in handy, but even the sweetest sap from a tree can sour one day, and it turns out she's soured too early, and yet it blindsides him, a choking feeling building in his throat. She wastes no time in cutting the cord, either, moments after they come back from the Interviews. He thinks they'd sit together on the couch like they did the two days after training, but instead, she propels him to the kitchen counter, gives him a glass of water, and then shatters his heart by holding it in her hands.

"_We'd be good together," Roanoke gaffs, smiling before taking a sip of the water. He ponders, briefly, why she is not drinking anything either. Instead, Sage rolls her knuckles with the thumb of her right hand, as if she is massaging the poison of a water moccasin to her fingertips. _

_She shakes her head, trying to hide her own grin, but there's a sense of disappointment hiding in her eyes. "I'm with others back home, Roanoke. Besides, you're too young for me."_

_That has him giggling, and Roanoke sets the water glass down. "Not like that, silly," and he decides to take a massive leap of faith. "Besides, I'm not into girls like that." Sage's eyes glisten with approval. When did she know? When did she know she hadn't been like all the others? And the concept of two partners? Roanoke knows that if he tries coming home with a boy on his arm, there'd be the sawed off barrel of a shotgun pressed up to his forehead, and he to pray to the leaves that his blood doesn't soak the ground too badly, let alone the concept of multiple lovers. He only has two hands... it sounds like a lot of busy work. "No, Sage, I meant allies."_

_"Oh," Sage nods, but then that look of disappointment digs deeper, and her brow furrows together, she picking at a loose strand of hair curling around her hair. _

Roanoke pounds the counter with his fists, closing his eyes, exhaling heavily. He knew he'd been excavating too far beneath the surface with her, that something is wrong before it shows its face, mangled up, scarred, blistered and bleeding, like his own hands gripping the controls of the woodcutting machine. It is him holding on the controls while his mother works at pushing the logs through. He's the one who severs his _mother's _hand free, and then the arm follows, and he's never felt more revulsion in his throat than then. However, this moment, just hours ago in the kitchen, it is a close runner-up, and he'd turn the controls back on again if it meant Sage's hand is the one going into the whirling blade. He can picture her finally breaking, screaming in agony and-

"What is wrong with you?" he asks himself, gasping, stepping away from the mirror. He hates the look in his eyes, the burning anger that radiates from within, looking like the smoke that comes from the razing of several square miles of the nearby forest. District 7 is swamped with them, but this is different, when the Peacekeepers intentionally set ablaze the land around them to grow some sort of tree that provides specific wood to build trellises and the like in the Capitol. Roanoke hears the agonizing moans of the land beneath his feet, the disturbances of time that shift when the ash finally settles over freshly made graves. His parents, besides their strange apprehension of homosexuality and some other types of sins, from their faith, are good parents, and it is father that speaks up for the trees, and that sends his father to the gravy line, fired for speaking up - luckily he is not whipped - and then, his mother...

Roanoke shudders, hands going to his temples, gripping the sides of his head harshly. "This isn't you, Arkus, snap out of it!"

_The silence passes over them for a moment as Roanoke finishes his glass of water, setting the cup in the sink. Sage runs her hands down along the counter, and occasionally she'll look up at the ceiling, sighing heavily to herself, before continuing the running of her fingers on the countertop, nails digging into the granite, making slight squeaking noises. He returns back to sitting on the other side of the counter, on one of the barstools so he can kick his legs, which he knows is incredibly childish, but regardless, he does it still. _

_"Roanoke," Sage says, without preamble, filling the silence, in which all he hears is the slow dripping tap of the sink into the basin below, and consistent drip, drip, drip stuffing the void of her awkward pause. "We can't be allies." _

_He's glad he just finished his drink, for Roanoke chokes on air, nearly falling off of the barstool. It would be quite the way to die, from falling back and breaking your neck. "What?" Roanoke asks, after gathering his bearings. _

_"Allies," she repeats, but Sage is unable to bring eye contact to him. Coward. Liar. Thief in the night. Traitor. Vigilante. Roanoke can go through a laundry list of names. "I can't be allies with you."_

_"Why- why not?" Roanoke sits up, actually jumping off of the counter, but then he realizes the height difference is quite astronomical, she at least an extra seven to eight inches on him, making it to six feet. Perhaps he should've stayed seated. "Did the Careers offer you a spot? I know they saw you throw and-"_

_"The Careers did not offer me a spot," she interrupts him. "Besides, after I scored a zero, they wouldn't even look at me, you know that." Sage shakes her head, and although he hears the sadness riding her voice, it is not the same thing as physically seeing the tears in her eyes, the tears he expects to be there. When they lock gazes, he's shocked. She's as rigid as the famous pine tree standing against the Justice Building, at least forty years old now, a pinecone swamp middling around the base of the tree, and there's nothing but a stark winter looking back at him. "I am four years older than you, Roanoke. I know you'd protect me and would defend me, and you know I would protect you and defend you too," she pauses for a second, Sage looking down at the counter. "But could you? Could you physically do it if that monster from Two or the girl from Six or that giant from Twelve came rushing at me and I was preoccupied with something else? Could you jump in and save me?"_

_Roanoke knows the answer to that already. No. "Yes, I would," he insists, leaning close to her, almost falling off the counter. "You know I would." _

_"They'd snap you like a twig," Sage says, her voice harsh, but there's a light shining in her eyes, a truth to it. Roanoke doesn't know what he believes in, perhaps not the faith his parents do, but something up above, something having to exist, and he's not sure if Sage is speaking like a prophet to him or not. _

_"I may surprise you..." his voice has lost all the fight in it._

_She brings her mouth together in a light frown, eyes downcast. "You're not strong enough to survive out there, Roanoke, and I can't be there for you forever to protect you," her hand goes back to touch the loose strand of her dancing around her ear. "Besides, think about last year. Linden and Peri," the water in the boy's mouth dries up instantaneously, he trying to spend all his time in the Capitol to not think about the previous results. "If we were in the final two, or three, as allies..." Sage shakes her head, and this is the closest to a real expression of sadness that he feels from her. "I'd do it in a heartbeat, to make it out, and I don't know if you would be able to," she hiccups, but no tears stream down her cheeks. "I don't want to kill you, Roanoke, and I never want to be in a situation where that might happen, so I'm cutting you loose..." she sets a hand on his shoulder. "Please try to understand me."_

Out loud, in the present, Roanoke now having his forehead rest against the mirror, dark hair covering his reflection in waves of an ever moving abyss, he sighs, as he didn't have an answer for her then, the words stuck in his throat and unable to come free. "Oh, I understand, Sage," he whispers to himself, but he knows that she knows he's answering her now, for the movement out in the living room ceases, as if they're tethered together. "I understand it well enough. I hope you're dead before our paths ever cross."

Even saying so does not make him feel better, but it's a start.

The 101st Hunger Games can corrupt even the sweetest of souls.

* * *

**_Bloom Estrada: District 12 Female P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

It's out in the open now. There's no hiding it, and Bloom is incapable of hiding the sadness that creeps up in the back of her throat. Mirek hates her. He hates her and everything to do with any sort of cause concerning it _ever, _because his father did something in the middle of the night that got him killed. She doesn't want to say anything that'll piss him off, as Mirek is a brewing storm just waiting to crack its first thunderbolt down from the heavens, Bloom feeling his rage emanate off of him the same way an egg-shaped timer vibrates its shell off when the time's up. Is her time up? It's a rather depressing thought, but she has to ask it to herself, hearing him shout on stage. The concept of them being allies hadn't been entirely lost to the wind, but she's starting to think it isn't something she should do, and Mirek admitting he wants to see every sort of freedom fighter dead has her blood chilled to ice.

She's not safe with him. Had she ever been, though?

The night is quiet, the hours getting late, but both he and her practically float around the space, traveling from room to room on their floor, but never wanting to go to sleep. There's the light passage of conversation sometimes, mainly about her father which she has no problem divulging tales over, but he's more withdrawn when talking about his mother and sister, two people in his life he seldom gets to see due to well, she knows why. Saying it out loud will not make the puzzle pieces come together clearer any longer.

Bloom sits down on the partitioned step up from the living room into the main bedroom hallways, her diamond dress billowing around her in a puddle of light blue cloth and a blizzard white foam to the edges. She absolutely loves the dress, running her fingers through the fabric, but her gaze goes back over to Mirek, he sitting at the counter, eating a bowl of grapes that their escort had wanted, but he's taken them for himself. He's commanded a lot for himself, Bloom supposes, looking at him with admiration. It's a shame, what he feels. And then, without preamble, for Bloom never does think about her decisions a hundred and ten percent of time, jumps the shark.

"You're in pain."

Mirek freezes into eating from the bowl of grapes, one halfway devoured in his mouth. Her district partner swallows the bite he's taken, the other half hanging between his index finger and thumb, he rolling the piece of fruit around. "Aren't you just a purveyor of the obvious?"

"Mirek, I-" Bloom gets to her feet, bringing the rest of the dress with her.

"I know what you mean." he cuts her off, swallowing the other half of the grape, before pushing the bowl aside. There aren't many left, and Bloom is debating going over and taking some, but she'd rather not lose her hand if you catch her drift. "And for the record, I am."

She takes a few steps closer to him, eyebrows raised. He seems like one to be entirely cut off from the world, entirely unchecked in expressing his emotions and that this is the first time he's ever expressed any sort of permanent or deep amount of feeling, to let alone _agree _with her. Two days ago she's glaring at him for badmouthing her to the Careers, people who'd surely feel pissed off at her for her motivations. "I had no idea that-"

Mirek waves a hand back and forth, shaking his head. "Spare me the melodrama," he locks his jaw, sighing exasperatedly, before looking at her. "You don't give a shit about me or my father, Bloom." She doesn't break eye contact with him, liquidous chocolate bearing right back at her, but this stare undoes her to the core. It strips her of everything she's ever known, everything she's ever _owned. _He undresses her with that one stare, and she's never felt more exposed or naked than in this moment despite being dressed, but it is not a sexual look he gives her. It is one of loathing.

Of hatred.

"We're not all like that, you know." She doesn't think he's stupid, but some of the things he thinks about and expresses, she's finding it hard pressed to argue that statement. "We're not all heartless shrews focused on overthrowing the system." Bloom swallows her fear, approaching him finally at the counter, and standing on the other side of it, he focused right there on the tiled kitchen, and he reaches for the bowl of grapes again. Bloom covers that hand with her left, and as if a jolt of electricity had passed between the two of them, he locks eyes with her, mouth falling open slightly. "I'm _sorry, _Mirek. I'm sorry about your father, and I would do anything I could to bring him back for you, but I don't have that kind of power."

He likewise swallows disconcertingly, it seeming difficult for him to actually swallow, the action causing him great pain. "Bloom-" Mirek turns his face away for a second, taking in a sharp breath.

"And I don't believe that you hate me. I don't believe that you hate everyone who ever stands up against the Capitol," she decides to test her luck even farther. For living in District 12, she and he would know more than anyone, more than any other tribute reaped or volunteered for the Games about the history of the Capitol's punishments. The lackadaisical quality to their touch has gone out of style, and it brings forth the whips and the stockades and the firing squads. The curfews are numerous, choking the populace tighter. She knows that Mirek is not walking around with his eyes closed.

He's not blind, and he cannot deny it any longer.

"Maybe I do. Maybe I don't," Mirek removes his hand from underneath hers, returning it back to her side, but he has yet to take his eyes off of her. It is as if the hatred deepens, and she can feel a piercing stare go through the bones on her arms. "What's it to you?"

"Because I am sure Mirek Bosco hates being called a liar."

Mirek straightens himself, standing up normally against the counter rather than his leaning pose where his elbows had been resting on the counter. He pushes the bowl of grapes over to her, nearly shoving it into her hands, a couple spilling out onto the counter and rolling onto the floor. Bloom still doesn't break her eye contact, for he has yet to break his. "How'd you get involved?"

What? No, he's not... is he really asking? "What do you mean?"

He scoffs, and then goes back to leaning on the counter, elbows pressing into the granite, he an inch away from her nose. "Don't play stupid with me," Bloom can feel his breath, hot and muggy, like a soiled wine, passing over her face, she squeezing her eyes, but she's not going to back away. It is almost like a challenge. _Almost. _"How'd you get involved with the rebellion? With the freedom fighters?"

"I wouldn't exactly call myself a freedom fighter, but..." Bloom bites on her lower lip, breaking a bulb. She's never told a soul, and he hasn't struck her as one being interested. If she closes her eyes, Bloom can still hear the girl's laugh, see the girl's smile, the memory of her sweet singing voice over the dandelions and daffodils, and Bloom can remember her heart wrenching scream as she watches the little girl on screen get beheaded by Maisey Rovneay in last year's Games. "Gaia Whisp."

Mirek brings his eyebrows together with a frown. "Who?"

"Gaia Whisp, the girl from Twelve who was reaped last year for the Quell. Her," Bloom says, exhaling shakily. She hasn't talked about her in a long time, maybe just a few days after her body is shipped back to Twelve in its typical crate, body flushed out of fluids, and Bloom's tears drying on her face as she looks down at Gaia's corpse, as pale as the sheer crystal nights above, and the stars have stopped their twinkling.

"How does a little orphan girl turn you into someone wanting to burn the Capitol down?"

Bloom locks her jaw, and she finally breaks the eye contact. No one has forced her to talk about Gaia, but she's walked into the conversation on her pure motivation, and the way out has been shut. "I'm pretty well off, but I'm not the upper class," It's the truth. An engineering job to help design mining mechanisms is a handsome paying job, but it is not enough for the grand lifestyle, not nearly enough. "My father told me that I needed to go and do something besides lounge around the house or go to school or hang out with my friends. I needed to do something, to be somebody." The weather is warm on her back, one August evening shortly after the end of the 99th Games, the building tall and impervious against the coal stained shacks, the building falling apart itself, quite unspectacularly. "I came across the orphanage, and that's where I met Gaia." Alone, sitting by herself, tears spilling down her face, eating a cold bowl of oatmeal, and Bloom is the golden goddess coming to rescue her. "Her parents died in a mining accident, and her brother, just two weeks earlier, had been reaped for the Games and she saw him die during the bloodbath."

Mirek hisses to himself, clenching onto the counter. "That's... that's rough..."

"She was the nicest girl you could ever meet, despite all the terrible things that happened to her." Bloom still has no idea why that is the little kid that she decides to hang out with, three times a week every week, telling her all about the life of Twelve, she just about to turn thirteen and her name would go up in the reaping jar... Bloom closes her eyes, the memory running off like a chastened lighting bolt. "I kinda saw her as a little sister I guess, since I didn't have any siblings." Her mother only ever had her, the daughter that they turn all their attention to. Bloom likes to think her parents are proud of who she has become. She likes to think it, at least. "One afternoon we laid in my backyard and she put flowers in my hair... it was one of the best times of my life."

"If you cared for her as much as you did, why didn't your family adopt her?" her district partner crosses his arms over the other, raising an eyebrow.

She tries to not have it bother her, but it does. The tone. _Accusatory. _It is not just curious, it's full of accusation and venom.

"We couldn't afford an extra person in the house," Bloom says. Trying to have kids is an expensive procedure when it cannot happen naturally, Bloom watching the way her parents dissolve at the seams when it turns out her father is a blank shooter. Her shoulders fall sagely back into place from their raised position at Mirek's rather disappointing gaze in his eyes. "Don't act like I didn't try, Mirek. I begged and I pleaded and I tried everything I _could _to get Gaia out of poverty and out of that sadness."

"And then she was-"

"And then she was reaped," the finality of the statement stabs her in the heart. "I wanted to volunteer for her, I definitely thought about it, but fear kept me paralyzed." She's too shocked to scream. Bloom is too shocked to call the girl out. She tries scraping money together for a sponsor gift, but the money falls back into her own coffers five minutes into the Bloodbath when the girl from Four takes her head clean off with a spiked club. "The Capitol and the world took her family from her at such a young age, and they decided that it wasn't enough so they stole her away too." Bloom sets her hands on the counter, turning them into fists. "I have never felt more angry at anything in my entire life than in that moment. I knew, from that point forward, I couldn't let them do this to another soul in the world." Her voice is icy cold, locking her jaw. "Yet here I am, unable to change anything."

"Bloom, I-"

"So, Mirek, the same thing your father was fighting for? It's the same thing I'm fighting for," she snaps, locking eyes with him again, and this time he breaks the staring contest. "I am sorry he left you at a young age, but he knew the risks, and you shouldn't try to hold it against him, cause all your father wanted to do was have a better life for you and your sister, the same _I'm _trying to do, if you'll let me." Bloom has raised her voice now, probably waking up the entire training center, but she doesn't care. She's hounded for caring on about the future, and if she is to stand her and not say anything on Mirek being fatherless, she knows she'll be hounded for that too. There's no victory.

"He abandoned me and-" Mirek starts up, but she's heard this a million times now, for his interview has been playing in her head over and over again.

Bloom holds a hand up, interrupting him. "He loved you. He did it because he loved you," she dares the Tarot card reading again, grabbing both of his hands in hers. "I don't know you very well and I didn't know your father, but I _know _that, Mirek."

He is unable to look her in the eyes. "How? How can you know that?"

"I just do." A lone tear falls down her face, she choking on air, voice cracking. "I just do."

"I'm sorry for telling the Careers what you did. I could only see my rage and anger and-" he looks down at his hands, but there's no way she's going to let him go. He's in pain, and she does not let a single sparrow try and fly away when it has a broken wing.

"You don't need to apologize, Mirek. You actually protected me from Aris and stood between us," she smirks to herself at the memory, as if it is correct, he steps in between them, even with Cyril pulling at the other teen's back. "There was no way in hell he was getting through you."

Mirek smirks to himself, smiling lightly. She's not sure he's smiled once since being in the Capitol. Not like he has an occasion to _be _smiling, of course, but still. "Only I get to try and hurt my district partner."

Well, okay, she can't change his sense of humor. Bloom winces inwardly at the statement, but he's learning. "Okay, that didn't work, but-" she shakes her head back and forth, inhaling, tightening her grip on his hands, leaning forward. "We have a Hunger Games to win, Mirek. I don't know how or where or even when, but I know something's coming. Something's changing, and we're gonna be a part of it." Bloom has felt it, she's felt it like a cold chill encompassing her entire body as she rests. She's seen her in a part of something more than fighting for their lives in an arena. She's seen _Mirek _picking up the banner and screaming for allies, and the raucous sound of metal singing in the air. The question is, what's the change? What's coming? She has no idea.

However, she does know this. Mirek is not falling through her fingers. She looks him straight in the eye, the tears drying, Gaia a distant memory, Bloom focused entirely on who is in front of her, for he matters the most. "We're all gonna be a part of it. The question is, will you try to run from your destiny?"

* * *

**_Jules Harper: District 4 Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

The board has been laid out, the pieces positioned in their correct spots, and there's no walking back. Jules and Anahita are lying side to side on the floor on their apartment floor, backs gently pressed into the carpet, he ever so slightly adjusting his body to scratch an itch that'd break free and crawl up his spine. They haven't switched out of their interview outfits, but Jules isn't sure he'd ever switch out of it if given the chance. He hasn't gotten the chance to wear a suit like the one he's donned in currently in his entire life, having to always resort to some sort of in-between that is trapping, a cage with solid gold bars keeping him in, keeping Jules in the rage and the anger and the stewing hatred at the disgusting body he's found himself placed in.

His family didn't have enough money to successfully afford a transitional surgery, but there is enough money to pay off the Academy Trainer, who is not one of the victors from Four regulating the trainees, which is a solid plus as they're more easy to be manipulated, the Capitol not breathing down their necks and demanding signed documentation and all that jazz. Jules knows that this would never fly in One and Two, he and his parents would be heads on spikes hanging outside the city's gates, the fresh blood from the beheadings dripping onto the cobblestone pathways as a reminder. Even in the more hands off of District 4 it is a dangerous system, Jules unable to stop his heart from beating as fast as it is while going to get his blood checked into the system. It is some sort of file alteration, done by the Academic Trainer who has connections to the Mayor's office, and for a good sum of $4000 Panemian dollars, the change will happily be instated. Once the alterations are reversed, for surely someone will know there's been a change to the system, Jules will have already won.

"_Over the girl lying next to me," _he thinks to himself, darkly, frowning slightly. He's grown attached of Anahita, and clearly he's sacrificed much for bringing her back to the fold. He's frustrated with the entire thing to begin with, truthfully, starting from the moment he volunteers for the Games. It had been decreed by the Academy that there'd be no competing volunteers for either spot, the male or female tribute, and that the volunteering Careers would wait entirely until the escort calls out the name of the reaped tribute, wait for the escort to then ask for any volunteers, and they'd take the leap. It is Jules's window of opportunity, when Anahita has already ran like a fast she-devil to the front of the stage that he must make his move, for everyone is still lax in the decision that some dude named _Coral_ \- who the hell names their son that? Drug addicts? - to jump for his spot of glory.

The glory tastes like strawberry champagne, if anyone is asking, as Jules helps himself to a bottle of it on the train. That ride is an odd one, for he knows he's sort of, kind of, entirely broke the law, and volunteered a year early, but Jules has pushed himself farther than anyone else in the Academy the last couple of years when the idealism of his true self comes forth, riding a golden chariot in the dawn of a new day. If things were normal or typical, which is a never happening occurrence in the Harper household, Jules would take his place as the 102nd Hunger Games District Four female volunteer, but that is not him, and he cannot wait any longer to take his stance as the _male _volunteer of the district. So that is why his hand soars up, and he gets out of line before the escort has even called the name on the slip of paper she pulls from the pile, and the glares are a bit weird and perhaps somewhat annoying, but he's moving past feeling accused. No one is stealing this away from him. The Capitol and District Four has taken enough.

They've taken Carrion, and that's a motion he'll never forgive them for.

Anahita's hair smells like strawberries, neither one of them talking all that often, just passing comments here or there, but enjoying their company while the ceiling fan above them drones on and on in its circles. Thinking back to the train rides, he feels Anahita's stare on him wherever he goes, she following him like a dejected puppy, for he is simply indulging in the delights offered per car and does not feel like he's babysitting her. However, in those moments, a bond grows, and he feels proud of her bravery to volunteer - slightly stupid, maybe, with a hint of insanity too, but he'll never say that out loud - that she deserves a spot in the Careers, for he can already hear the dissenting opinions coming from those who feel they could strongarm themselves into a leading position on who belongs or not simply due to age and size. Her seven is nothing to scoff at, and neither's his eleven.

"Jules?" Anahita asks, disturbing the tranquil silence that has encompassed the two of them, a bubble of serenity popping the moment she speaks. She shifts over so she's looking down at him from above, balanced on one of her arms, the other still horizontal to the carpet. Jules moves his head over some so he's looking directly at her, blinking for her to continue. "Why did you kick Aris and Satin out of the alliance?" Her cheeks are flushed pink at the center, out of her tanned complexion, and that has him frown, combined with the question. "I mean, I'm honored and all that you fought for me so hard, but they're good and you just kinda-"

"Are you questioning my decisions?" Jules asks. He doesn't try to be threatening in his tone, but it spills out that way.

His district partner swallows heavily, and her hands go to dig into several curls of hair. It's something he's seen her do whenever she gets nervous, a tick of hers to play with her hair constantly, unable to stop, unable to keep her hands to herself. "No, of course not, Jules. I was just wondering why-"

He shouldn't have to explain himself to anyone. A leader doesn't need to be questioned by his lesser compatriots. If a peon is to question someone's decisions and their leadership skills, the entire pie crumbles in their hands so they're covered in pastry and the filling and a discarded pan clattering onto the kitchen floor. It is the end for them all, if the little twats who think they know what to do start wanting to have their voices heard too. Jules has never thought of the Careers as a democracy, it never has become one. Someone, and it is always the strongest physically, with the highest score, snags up the mantle, wears the medal around their neck, is always making the decisions. It's not a democracy. It's a dictatorship, and Jules knows that he's the only one who has the balls and the guts to lead, not out of some sort of selfish desire to be the best, but so they're not all slaughtered by one another. A dosage of irony, he smirks to himself.

"Would you want to be allies with Aris and Satin?" he forges the question, now righting himself too. "You know neither one of them supported you being in the alliance. Would you have been able to fight side by side with them knowing full and well they wanted you out?" Jules raises an eyebrow, Anahita's face flushing slightly before she ducks her head.

"Neither did Cyril or Maren and-"

"That's because they assumed it'd be Aris or Satin and we're going to follow whoever led them, cause they aren't leaders," Jules brings his legs closer together, and the air between them has chilled another few degrees cooler, as if the conversation has caused the blades to spin faster. "I hadn't revealed to them what I could do, cause they saw my height, saw my age, even though Aris is the same age as I am, and wrote me out of the picture," he smiles smugly to himself. "I couldn't wait to prove them wrong."

"They counted you out because they knew you were a girl," Anahita interrupts him.

Jules pauses in mid-sentence, eyebrow still raised, lips pursed, and the record has stopped playing. What did she just say? _What did she just say? _"Anahita, what did you just tell me?" He must have wax stuffed in his ears, or that second bottle of strawberry champagne has caused his senses to deteriorate more than he'd like, because there is _no way _she just-

"You're a girl, Jules," his district partner repeats, and he's snapped awake immediately. His entire body seizes itself in a full body chill, Jules inhaling sharply, moving away from her for a second. "I've seen you around before, in the other female training classes, and one day you're all of a sudden switching from the female to male side," and then it is as if he's knocked in the head with a brick. "You're transgender."

He's not sure if he should be happy or upset that she's aired his dirty laundry out onto the floor. Jules scoots back closer to Anahita, legs generating static electricity against the fabric of the carpet. "How long have you known this, Anahita? How could you tell?"

"It's not hard to realize," she says, he trying to read the expression on her face, but it is unreadable. "Satin and Aris knew you had cheated the system or something to be the male from Four, when clearly you aren't. Why the Capitol didn't notice the discrepancy, I'm not sure," Anahita shakes her head immediately after that, holding her hands out. "Not like it matters, either, but you know what I mean," and then she smiles, his entire body feeling warm. "But I know that you aren't really a girl, Jules. You're a guy, and you're our leader, and I'm okay with that."

"You- you aren't against my identity?" Jules asks, fearful. Not everyone he's met has been thinking on the same wavelength as he has, about the gilded cage, the emotions wanting to break free. His parents did not understand it at first in the slightest, but Jules doesn't let them stop him from furthering the subject, making it sure so his parents have no other reason but to see his perspective and support him, as the money for the bribe did not come from him; it came out of the collective Harper fund.

Anahita frowns to herself at the question, lips downturned slightly into a frown, but it is a childish type of expression, almost one riddled with disappointment. "Jules, why would I have a problem with it at all? You wanting to be who you believe you are doesn't affect me negatively in the slightest, and I support you in what you believe you are."

He throws his arms around her in a hug. Jules has been dying to hear those words, and he's heard them from the last person he'd ever expect to hear them from. A lightning bolt from the sky hits him in the forehead, a rivet of shock rippling through him from the spinal cord out to the tendons in his fingers and the ligaments holding him together. He moves away out of the hug, gripping Anahita by the shoulders. She looks at him in a slight confusion, eyes searching his face, her lips parted to ask a question, but nothing comes out. Satin and Aris are expendable, caught up in their egos to really be a threat, and they'd be a nuisance trapped in the Careers with him.

Cyril and Maren are good tributes, he surmises, seeing their talents with weapons, but they're also expendable. Cyril is unable to stand up for himself, following whoever is in charge like a little lap dog, barking when the bell goes off, or rolling over, and when the pets will come from good behavior, the boy cranes his neck into the affection; Jules loves pulling the strings, the hands on the back as he gives support for the exercises. Maren, sweet Maren, she's a canoe without a rower or an oar to steer herself with, lost in the muddle of air, needing validation, and wherever the validation comes from is where she goes off to pasture.

He doesn't need any of them. They're all sheep, and sheep only are able to walk into the slaughter. Anahita, however? He sees a light in her, a brightness that'll protect him from the other four, and he's found the way to tug her strings too. A dictatorship, remember?

Jules shakes his head back and forth, slowly making a grin. "Anahita, let's ditch Cyril and Maren," he says, excitement creeping up in his voice.

"What?" Anahita's voice stutters slightly, a burst of static.

"C'mon," he says, hands still at her shoulders, with a slight shake, a rattle to the rationalization of thought, "Think about it. Aris and Satin teaming up together will be hilarious, as they'd be tearing each other apart, trying to outdo the other. Sure, I imagine they're upset with me for kicking them out of the alliance, but I don't know how they didn't see it coming with their brat like attitudes," but he sees she's not as convinced. "Of course, Cyril and Maren, I'd hate to do it to them, but we don't need them. Besides, can you imagine their surprise when we turn on them?" The excitement bubbles in his veins, his arms buzzing with the joy of the future, where his blade will enter Cyril's chest without warning, the scarlet will splatter, and it _will be glorious. _"We'd leave them anyways, Anahita, you know we would. It's the Hunger Games, right? Everyone for themselves?"

"But-" she starts, bringing her lower lip into her mouth, suckling on the skin.

He shakes her a bit more firmly, increasing the pressure on her shoulders, leaning closer to her. "Do you trust me, Anahita?" She doesn't respond immediately, eyes still searching his face. He's not sure what she's expecting to find, for he's kept himself devoid of the truth creeping up in his brain. "Do you trust me?"

Anahita shakes her head slowly. Of course she'd trust him. She's the only one fighting for her the entire time while everyone else throws her to the side, unable to see the potential that rests inside the fiery soul, as if someone by now hasn't learned by the years of the Games existing that you do not write someone off at first glance. "I trust you, Jules, I trust you."

Disassembling the Careers has proved easier than he expects, and he's placed the final nail in the coffin. The Capitol wants a show? He'll give them a show alright, a show that has him doing a solo tap routine underneath a blood rain, umbrella in hand, a dark leathered suit smelling of the fresh corpses littering the ground.

He's got a Hunger Games to win, and a future he sees on the horizon to take, and Jules Harper is not going to let anyone get in his way. Not an upstart from One, or a petulant child from Two, and unfortunately, this registering with a bitter taste of acid in the back of his throat, not the sweetheart from Four, no matter how nice her hair smells or how accepting she is of his identity.

A dictatorship led by Jules Harper is a surviving political system, it'll last longer than the other empires that have fallen before him.

* * *

**_Ciphra Longsdale: District 3 Female P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

It has been awhile since the last chatter of the streets has vanished into the air, and the dying lights of a city partying slowly fades into the wave of ominous rain clouds spilling over the surrounding mountains, choking the Capitol valley in a circle of calm wind, the calm before the storm. Ciphra is resting against one of the pillars erected on their floor, looking out over the glimmering city, her hair down and long against her back, blowing freely in the wind. She's freezing cold, but she can't sleep; she doesn't want to sleep. Whenever she tries closing her eyes, all she sees is that one single image that has paralyzed her with fear ever since the morning of the reaping. Tach's face, covered in blood, part of his skull ruptured, neck torn open by Veracity's claws, and the worst part is that she's ordered the execution, dressed in some sort of flowing robe decorated in diamonds, the look of madness in her eyes.

Ciphra shudders into the column some, breathing to herself. It's around one in the morning, and the tributes are to be awoken at ten in the morning sharp, so just nine hours to go, but she cannot go back to sleep. Tach's question burns in her mind, at why she'll look at him fondly for a moment, and then stare as if she's seen a horrible future. "_That's just it," _she tells herself in the silent moments where no other sound is around her, "_I've seen all of their horrible futures._" She's not sure how to explain it, but Ciphra looks at any of the tributes, including herself at some points, and there's that fate that is among most of them, head smashed in, throat torn open, but it is like the corpse is still smiling, despite the vermillion leaking out of them. She's never been more terrified of anything in her life, but she has no idea how to explain what it means either.

Some brushing noise off to her right causes her to look out from where the disturbance came from, a pair of eyes staring at her from the darkness of the hallway. After the interviews, in which Ciphra is feeling a thousand times better from than when her disappointing training score comes flashing across the screen under her portrait, Tach says he's going to bed, dark circles bearing around his eyes, Ciphra having a million and one questions about the _tachyons _he talks about, but she sees the connection immediately with his name and the concept, but it seems the dredging call of bedsheets and a feather pillow is more powerful than the eager discovery of knowledge, so he slips out of her grasp. Or so she thought, she supposes, as she recognizes the eye color peering out from the bleak blackness.

"Tach?" she asks, shuffling slightly against the pillar. Ciphra has switched out of her interview outfit, a glimmering copper dress, like frazzled wires out of a motherboard system that clings to her figure perfectly, putting on something more light, a more open bodice, a pink fringed cotton nightgown that is not near warm enough for her sitting outside, and when Tach does indeed step into the light, he's dressed entirely in white - Ciphra can already imagine the cardinal on his hands staining the unblemished outfit, a shudder ripping through her, and it is not the air from the city doing so - he crossing over to her.

"Hey," he greets her warmly, before taking a seat by the other pillar. "Couldn't sleep," he asks.

Ciphra shakes her head in agreement. "Yeah. You too?"

"My head is spinning," Tach motions to his skull, waving his hands about erratically in a circle. Ciphra is unable to keep eye contact with him, doing so briefly, ever so briefly, but she does not maintain her gaze lest he break out into a fountain of forever spilling blood. "I was going to get a glass of water but then I saw you out here and I thought you'd want the company."

She smiles, but the happiness that Ciphra wants to feel alongside it does not come following after like normally. He wants more than company, she can tell, for it is ever present on his voice, a slight edge to it. At first she assumes it is just the Tach Andon expectancy at this point, he being a bit jumpy like a live wire emanating sparks on the ground or into a bog, but there are levels to his razor-sharp edge of his voice. She heard it earlier, before the scores, where she refuses to respond to his question, some of the same level as before returning, but it is not as loud as last time, nor as clamorous; it no longer overrides her own thoughts.

"Thanks, Tach," she shrugs in the outfit, looking out over the silent, dark city. "I was just about to head to bed."

"You did a great interview tonight," he tells her, looking at her, she seeing so out of the corner of her eye, but she keeps her gaze intently on the stark buildings in the night, or the reflected silver crescent of moon on the window, some silver waves spilling out into the fountain down below in the courtyard, they not being that high up above the Capitol after all, the training center being a floor below ground, then a lobby, Floor One for District 1, and so on and so forth. "The audience ate up the talk about Veracity," he smiles to himself. "You should've heard Sophiana's reactions to your story," his voice is light, losing that razor touch momentarily. "She thought Veracity was a real person."

Veracity _is _a real person, Ciphra is hard pressed to argue, but she keeps her opinions to herself. Her parents have told her that more often than not her opinions are what gets her into trouble, and then she couples them with her imagination that never wishes to take a break, and she's got a weapon inside her own head, inflicting damage without seeing color or bias, and programmed in is also a self-destruct button, a button Ciphra has thought about pressing once before. "Thanks," she responds. "I thought your interview was good too."

"A lot of it went over their heads," her district partner waves away the compliment. "I could see their confused expressions."

She nods her head, before looking back over the gilded landscape, a congruous continent of platinum sheathed in the shadows. It is a wonderful city, beautifully designed, and she's always desired wanting to live here among the franchised, among the elite. She's seen firsthand, from the work her parents have done, the types of systems that the Capitol run on, seeing the fragility of some of those systems as if someone pushed a domino over and caused a chain reaction. Ciphra knows she's lived a more privileged life, as has Tach, who is going to agree with her on that, but it has not blinded her to the sadness that runs in her veins at the truth that she could very well die tomorrow, her privileged upbringing being unable to teach her how to survive, she impairing herself in an event she is unable to see.

"I-" she goes to say, Ciphra not quite sure what she's going to say, but Tach overrides that for her.

"I want to apologize," he says, quite abruptly, taking a seat directly across from her on the other column, stretching out his long legs so they're resting up near her side, they about a foot apart from one another, where she cannot quite fully see him in the dark of night, "About earlier," Tach finishes, having fully positioned himself correctly. "You were upset and I was demanding answers to something I know you didn't want to share." Her district partner shakes his head, frowning. "You didn't deserve that treatment from me, since you've always been nice," he looks up at her, but still, she won't. She can't physically bring herself to do it anymore. It has been a sickness brewing in her stomach, a volatile puking reaction that threatens to undo all of her work.

Ciphra squeezes her eyes shut, absorbing the silence into her head.

There's no reason not to tell him, or at least, a fraction of the truth.

"I keep... seeing things, Tach," she exhales shakily, and this time she looks at him. Ciphra is unsure if it is the shadows that cause this, but she no longer sees his ghastly fate all over him, just her district partner sitting forward some, bringing himself into the column of moonbeam with a raised eyebrow. "I don't have to look at someone for very long for it to happen."

"See... what, Ciphra?" he eggs her on, gently. The razor sharp tone is gone, dropped for a sweet one, a disarming tone, she latching onto it like a honey bee sniffing out a spot to pollinate. A smell of rosemary, a blueberry hint to the sweetness, and something harsher than that riding slowly behind it, like nutmeg and cinnamon.

Ciphra locks eyes with Tach, and he visibly shakes in the fraction of moonlight at her look. "I see Death, Tach."

"What- what do you mean?" There's not a pause when he asks the question, as Tach has now moved closer to her. Ciphra's skin bristles with electricity as he comes closer to her. Perhaps this has all been a mistake. Perhaps she can conjure a bird to fly from the heavens and pluck his eyes and tongue out or perhaps Veracity can close his metallic hand around his throat and rip everything free, all the guts and flesh holding Tach Andon as Tach Andon alive. She'd very much like to see it happen, a twisting part of her writing it down and chanting it to the clouds for them to hear her incantation.

She shakes her head, frowning. "I don't know how to put it without terrifying you, but-"

"Too late," he interrupts, genuinely, eyes wide, but he's not breaking that moment of gravitas. Ciphra looks at him alarmedly, he smiling sheepishly. "Sorry, Ciphra, but that's not something to take lightly."

Ciphra bites down on her tongue. "I don't- I can't say anything else, Tach," Part of her knows that if she stays her tongue, then what she's seen will never come to light. It is Tach's nature, his uncompromising nature to dissect and demand and divide, but she knows herself well enough to not spill it all out, just to feed bits of it to him, for enough of it will scare him off.

He sighs to himself, resignedly, falling back against the other column, Ciphra keeping her gaze out towards the Capitol.

She can't force herself to divulge further, a feeling of bile building in the back of her throat. It's back, the blood pouring down his face as she looks at him, skull battered open, throat ripped apart, but this time the blood isn't the glimmering copper of her dress that she expects.

It's black, the darkest color of the deepest abyss on the planet.

It takes her entire willpower to hold in her scream.

* * *

**_Vanya Vasiliev: District 11 Male P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

He has no idea why he picks up the ring, truth be told. Vanya is fighting back the tears as Zola spills her heart out on the stage, out to the audience, for he's never seen this side of her in the slightest. The ring is heavy in his hand as he gives his interview, and although this has not been the first time ever interviewed for a Capitol program, or certainly the first time he's sat in Pollux's other chair and spoken with the man, Vanya is unable to bring himself to speak any more than a few words at a time, instead staring at the halcyon band encaged by his fingers, or the way Zola's voice breaks over the microphone. He has no idea why, but he knows he blew the interview harder than Ponty - that has him rolling in line, laughing so hard he's crying - when he exits the stage, so Bloom Estrada can take his place.

Neither one of them speak to each other after the interviews are over, taking the elevator together, he pressing the button to take them back to their floor. They do not go up right away, rather milling around on the lobby floor, not talking still, until several Peacekeepers chase them away with batons in hand. Vanya holds out his hand for to take when stepping into the elevator, but she does not reciprocate the gesture. A thousand thoughts sit in his brain as they take the ride up, it seeming to last an eternity before they land on the designated spot, their arrival chimed with a little bell. Zola has stopped crying at this point, although her eyes are burning still with the bloodshot effects slowly starting to fade away. When they arrive, she steps out first, it now being around one in the morning, it slowly crossing into quarter after the hour.

Vanya stays, however, in his spot. The elevator is specifically for them, so it won't close on him until he gets out, or unless he directs it to go somewhere. The ring is still in his hands, vibrating along the underside of his knuckles. Zola pauses halfway into her walk, before looking back at him, frowning. "Vanya? Aren't you coming?"

He keeps the frown on his face, his head in a dance of confusion and thoughts all trying to be overheard by one another. District 11 has never felt like home to him, he always wanting to be in the Capitol, he always trying to take center stage, but he knows the argument has been made before that the spotlight found him rather, that center stage picks him out, and that he's built some sort of ego around his talent. It is the Capitolistic way, to prove how someone sinks or swims, and Vanya has been swimming in the shark tank since he gained a dorsal fin of his own to cut through the water, but this is different, being in the Games. Being forced to be with someone else who has gripped him by the sides of the face, forcing him into view to yell at him all the horrible things he's done, the horrible things he's said... his station is not meant for a place of abuse.

"You dance?" he asks. That hadn't been something he expects out of her mouth, but he's been looking at his own reflection too long to notice that the signs have always been there. The way she turns her feet out, the hips are properly aligned, and she's never slacking in her posture. Vanya rolls on the balls of his toes, going en pointe briefly, but his head brushes against the roof of the elevator car so he stops. He'd much appreciate not being bald by the time the Games roll around. Somehow, that, in his hours of brewing, is what he comes up with. He's never been good with spontaneity.

Zola smirks slightly, it being the happiest facial expression he's seen on her face all evening. "Yeah, Vanya, I do. The same studio as you."

"Really?" Vanya raises his eyebrows, stepping out of the elevator. That- is that a coincidence? A thermodynamic miracle? He knows that the last six years of his life have been fully devoted to making sure the point of his foot is as sharp as a blade's edge, or that he can leap as high as an eagle nest that is out of reach for a mere mortal, but how blind has it turned him to everything else that's moved?

"Vanya, there's only one studio in Eleven to go to," she points out, walking halfway from her spot in the living room to meet him directly, the elevator closing behind him as Vanya steps into the apartment. He takes his dress shoes off, finding them to be entirely suffocating, he needing his body to breathe, to be limber. He considers, very briefly, for he knows Zola might love seeing him bare chested, about taking off his shirt, a suave cream colored dress shirt tucked into a pair of dark pants, but he keeps his upper body clothed. "Besides, there's only my back yard and-" she stops short, turning her head in to her neck, smiling hesitantly. "Well, you get the picture."

"How come I didn't notice you?" Vanya goes to grab a water bottle from the fridge, ripping the cap off, fountaining the steady stream, it cooling his throat.

Zola balances herself on the counter with a piqued eyebrow. "Really, Vanya? You're asking how you didn't notice me? Did you notice _anyone _at the studio?"

"Fair point," he agrees, having taken half of the water bottle. He's sweating, and he has yet to even exert a single move, and it requires a lot for Vanya to sweat. He tugs at his collar absentmindedly, closing the water bottle. At one point, Vanya is surprised that there's even other students in the school, foolishly believing that it is only his tuition keeping the coffers afloat, that this is why he's being poured into the vat of attention and love his teachers give him, or the chocolate and flowers and handwoven blankets. He appreciates the attention, no matter how he seeks it.

His district partner nods briefly, before yawning. It is late, extremely late, and Vanya doesn't normally stay awake this long. His entire body is in a full buzz, like he's had caffeine or something - Vanya cannot imagine consuming any other worse type of beverage or inhalant into his system, thinking of the damage it would do to his physique - and is unable to find the off switch. "Well, good night, Vanya. I'll see you in the morning," Zola says, breaking the lull where neither one of them knew what to say.

He blinks in surprise, having broken off into a tangent about ballet barres and the like.

"Wait, Zola, wait," and she does pause, not having even gone anywhere for his outburst is urgent, full of vitality and need. He digs into his pocket, pulling out the wedding ring. He knew practically nothing about Zola, besides her dreadlocks, which are now dyed amaranthine at the tips, and that she's mean-spirited with a basket - the hit had been wonderful, Vanya amazed at the dexterity and grace with how she operates - but he knows a lot of it is his fault. The sponsors need him to be amazing, and he's been losing the stakes nearly every step of the way. Although the numbers have him as the 2nd highest betting odds, Amaris being the clear-cut Capitol perspective on a victor, Vanya feels off. It churns in his soul, that his alignment is off. It is Zola's interview that has him wipe a single tear away, off his face, but that is before the ring falls. He slams it onto the counter, and Zola inhales sharply.

"I dropped that for a reason, Vanya," she tells him, shaking her head, brown eyes laced with a tinge of upsetedness.

Vanya has seen a lot in his life, and for not even knowing anything about his district partner, consumed with the spotlight that feels warm on his arms, he does know this. He's never seen such an expression of love before, out of anyone in his entire life, including himself and the love he has for dance, an ideal he'd marry if he could. She deserves the happiness that has been taken away from her, for the chance that she might not be able to see. "This is yours, Zola," he urges, pushing it in her direction.

"I don't want it, Vanya. I can't have it anymore," her voice is rigid, unmoving.

"Zola, please, I-"

She pushes it back at him, his voice croaking off in surprise. Why? Why would she not want it? Why would _he _want it? Freshly formed tears glisten in her eyes, she sucking in her left cheek to chew on, before walking around the counter, picking the ring up in her hand, before placing it in Vanya's, closing his fist on the object. He looks at her, lost for words. The sound of the elevator churns in the background, but he's unable to take his eyes off of his district partner, who he is towering over height wise, but here, she's the larger person, she's enraptured him from a first glance.

"You found it; I want you to have it," she insists, an edge to her voice that has Vanya lower his hand to his side.

"I- I can't keep it!" he babbles, probably waking up District 12 above them. "Zola, this is a ring for you and Narcissa and you were to give it to her for love and-" he's ranting now, his words brushing together, whatever semblance of composure that kept him together unraveling like a pointed toe flexing slightly.

Zola steps back away from Vanya, she forcing a smile. "She's gone, Vanya. I can't be in love with a corpse, or someone that isn't here any longer."

"Zola, you cannot be serious, I-" he starts, taking another step forward, before turning his head to the right, hearing the elevator door open and close as if someone had arrived on the floor. Why would anyone be...? "Can- can I help you?" he asks, all of a sudden, out of the blue, the rabid hurry of protest and melancholy coming to a complete stop at the stranger standing on their floor. Both tributes from Eleven have a look of confusion on their face, staring at their visitor.

An Avox, though Vanya is not sure of their name, is standing just on the foyer away from the elevator, basked entirely in red from head to toe, as if his entire body is bleeding. In the Avox's hands is an envelope, and Vanya can briefly make out the writing on it underneath the servant's ghostly pale hand, an eerie likewise shade to his own alabaster skin tone. It's his name, in a very fancy calligraphy, as if a machine had made the handwriting. The Avox simply puts the letter on the counter, making a haste and quick getaway back out the way he came, as if he had never even been on their floor in the first place.

The two them lock eyes with each other, before Vanya reaches for the letter, prying it open with his fingers. He curses to himself, a papercut splitting open the center of his thumb, but this is certainly not his first papercut or injury. He suckles his finger into his mouth, a folded up piece of paper falling out of the envelope, the blood tart on his tongue. Zola peers over his shoulder wordlessly, breathing alongside him without a sound, and he's all but forgotten about the ring he's now placed back into his pocket.

He scans the contents of it first, before furrowing his eyebrows together. No, that can't be right. He sets the letter down, frowning to himself. This is why he does not stay up later than he's supposed to.

"Vanya?" Zola asks, but there's no hint of apprehension on her voice. "Vanya, what is it?"

"It's a letter," he says, picking it back up and holding the top part of it in his left hand, brushing his thumb over one of the corners. "Addressed to me."

"And what does it say?"

This feels like some sort of prank. It has to be.

He reads it again once more, but his eyes are not deceiving him. "It's an order for me," Vanya locks eyes with Zola, a haunted gaze flashing behind his diamond stare. "I am ordered to gather all twenty-four tributes in our training uniforms down to the training center floor in half an hour, and to wait there for further instruction."

"Who's it from?"

Vanya has heard of the name once, just once, and President Bonnie spoke about it briefly during the Tribute Parade, but he's more focused on the devastating affect of not being the most sought out tribute in the circle without listening to what is being said. A name, an Avox who shall not be named.

His mouth has gone entirely dry, and his body shakes as he speaks.

"It's from someone named The Phoenix."

* * *

**Ta-da! Ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #22: Partisan in Death, the 2nd half of the Interview aftermath, pre-Games stuff and we've covered the last of the second round of POV's between Magdalena, Roanoke, Bloom, Jules, Ciphra, and Vanya, another group I was really, really excited for. I didn't cry near as many times as I did - still shed some tears with Bloom and Vanya, ya'll, it's the family/love dynamics that hit me the hardest - but I knew eventually I'd be landing back in this 14k zone, and still, no apology.**

**So, as you can see, there are many things plotted afoot here, such as Magdalena knowing what she must do someday, Roanoke has been kicked to the curb by Sage, Bloom has made a bridge with Mirek, Jules is the sneaky freaking bastard, Ciphra is from the Sixth Sense (if you know that movie, you're amazing) and Vanya, like Seth, has been given orders too. I am very excited for where we go from here, cause the Games are upon us ladies and gentlemen, they're upon us and some tributes are a-gonna die! What does your chart up until the Games look like? I am sure there'll be variety for except one - *looks at Jules pointedly* but that's what this is all for.**

**Briefly, for Chapter #23, we're gonna step into the Capitol shoes and see some more POVs, but beyond that, arena tribute time with the 101st Games. I'd very much appreciate a review, as I've been revving for all the stops with these last few chapters, and your support is greatly appreciated, as I am sure you're aware. I love you all so much, and I'll see you with Chapter #23 sometime next week, as I know I'll start writing this weekend. Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	23. Viva La Revolution (Phoenix I)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #23: Viva La Revolution. This, ladies and gentlemen, is our penultimate experience, what the last twenty-two chapters have been building towards, and from the Capitol perspective, I guess we better start this off right and proper, huh? Last chapter, #22, was the final round of tribute POVs before everything falls to shit, and we saw from Magdalena, Roanoke, Bloom, Jules, Ciphra, and Vanya's perspectives, all spicing up the story and the drama and all of that is going to be making an impact very shortly, so continue holding onto your seats; I see ya'll looking at the chapter title a bit too deeply. It'll all make sense shortly. For now, enjoy Chapter #23: Viva La Revolution, and I'm trying extremely hard to not make this 14k, I swear it, but I am aiming for higher than 8k, just FYI.**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, there shall come disciples to lead you out to the Promised Land; follow them, he commands, for they shall free you from your impeding shackles of darkness._

**_Hector Merviere: Victor of the 77th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

His mouth feels like he's concurrently biting down on cotton and a crowbar at the same time, Hector groaning in pain as the next swat with the billy club connects with his side. The victor hits the wall with a groan, clutching his body in pain, a sensor of danger emanating off of him. "_I get it,_" he growls to himself. "_I'm in pain! I'm in danger! I GET IT!" _He weakly holds a hand up to shield his eyes from the light that swings back and forth from his prison cell. The hours seemed to tick by, being with Hale in her prison cell as Lazarus stalks away for the Mansion, holding onto one of those fliers, and with it, everyone's death sentence. They lay in silence together, sharing each other's grief, kissing the aching parts and touching the parts that no longer hurt. It is not romantic, it is not sexual, but it is a moment of clarity for each other.

He's never married, Hector has never considered the idea of a girlfriend, or a boyfriend for that matter, but in those moments, over the last few weeks, when he looks at Hale, he sees that warm feeling in his chest that he immediately shuts down. She's his brother's wife, his dead brother, in case he needs a reminder, and that thought is snapped out of shock by the next baton hit connecting against his jaw. He sees stars for a moment, collapsing and falling back onto the wall, groaning out in pain again. Stepping into the light, out of the shadows, the hallway doused in a low amber light from the emergency lights blaring on, is Lazarus Pietro, his Peacekeeper helmet off, but where it is Hector has no idea. He has never seen the man look more murderous in his life, and he's known Lazarus for at least ten years at this point.

Hector tries imagining what it would like if he, this Head Peacekeeper, had been another a tribute in his games, if Lazarus had been the District 2 Male with his short cut black hair and dark blue eyes, and that chiseled jaw and that murderous stare... just what would happen? He recalls that it is the District 2 Male he kills in the final four, running through a minefield of barbed wire, the Career getting caught on one of the snags at the shoulder, they both bleeding profusely already in their fifteen minute chase, and Hector drives the blade he's holding into the tribute's neck. What does Lazarus's blood look like? Does he bleed the same stark crimson as everyone else? Is his blood golden, the ichor spilled by the Gods of heaven? The gods that Hector laments to Arizona about, the ones they can't reach.

"_We're fallen angels who aren't evil enough to become demons, and who are too corrupted to rejoin heaven..." _Hector thinks to himself, faintly smiling, his teeth glimmering copper back at the Head Peacekeeper. He remembers saying that to Arizona, right before his girl Victoria is killed in a vote-off with six tallies against her, and Calhoun asking him about the kids in his office. A few tears slide down his cheeks. Those were simpler times, much simpler times compared to now, what with prison cells and nightly beatings and a crime he never committed. Hector wonders, briefly, as all he is afforded is short bursts of thought, is how Arizona's 'wife' is doing, Hailey, the cover-up they used for Hale whenever the two would be apart per the records. He's never liked her, knowing she simply is in the relationship for the money, treating Elias and Arianne like charges instead of her children, but he supposes it could be rather difficult for a woman to know the people in front of her belong to a different woman, and that woman is the true person to have her 'husband' and his heart. He thinks he's staring at a fallen angel right now, truthfully.

Lazarus steps further into the room, keeping the cell door open. Hector finds it odd, that the cell door is left open as he has shut it every single time beforehand on these beatings. Hale is no longer in the cell right next to him, but a floor above them, and three to the right, as even though Hector is blindfolded, he can trace the number next to the cell door as he walks, Lazarus continuously pulling him along to the point where he'll rip his socket straight out if he isn't careful. The concept of Lazarus Pietro being careful might be the funniest thing Hector has ever thought of. The victor looks up weakly at the Head Peacekeeper, who is sneering at him, dark eyes colder than the chilliest blizzard in recent memory, and he raises the baton up, bringing it down.

Hector seizes it in his hand, a triumphant _aha _moment, and his entire body surges with strength. The time in prison has not been kind on his body, although it has only been two weeks, maybe thirteen days, standing up straight is a difficult task, his legs wobbling, but not now, _not here. _Lazarus chokes on a croak of surprise, Hector struggling to his feet. He hasn't been shackled to the floor yet, feet and arms unfettered and free to move, but each movement does bring old age and sawdust into his joints, creaking and grinding like the Panemian machine. Lazarus tries wrenching the baton free, but Hector is holding onto it like he held onto the blade back in the arena. His only kill, his true kill, had been that bastard smug Career with slicked back hair, and a smile that made all the girls come undone, but not Hector. It had been glorious, truly glorious, when he wrenches the blade free and the blood pours out of the tribute's neck, some sort of plea lost to the bubbling of the blood.

"Not anymore," Hector says, but it comes out as a weak whisper, fire coursing through his veins. "You don't get to hit me anymore."

"You don't control me, traitor!" Lazarus spits out, again tugging on the baton.

"Just like how you don't control me," and the victor from Ten tries wrenching the baton into his grasp, but it is as if he is tugging on a tank for all the good it does.

Lazarus slugs him across the face, black dots appearing in Hector's vision. He sways some, to the right, but he keeps his grip steady, smiling still, mouth still bleeding, ghastly vermillion staining his teeth. He is punched again, and Hector lets go of the baton, falling into the corner of his new cell, some blood pouring out of his mouth onto the tile. The energy and fight in him extinguishes immediately, and the moment his head collides with the floor he is back to the tortured self, and when he looks up at the Head Peacekeeper who is making his way over to him, the strength in him once before is nowhere to be found. Lazarus drops the baton, kicking it over to the other corner. He stalks over to Hector, grabbing him by the shirt and lifting him up to his feet.

"You think this is funny, don't you?" Lazarus hisses into his face. "You get some sort of kick off of being unbearable?"

"It is funny!" Hector jokes to himself, head dolling to the side and around in a circle. "You pretend that you're some ominous thing and you're just Bonnie's little bitch." It is on his mind, and he has to say it.

"I should slit your throat for saying that!" the Head Peacekeeper growls, pushing Hector into the wall. Another burst of stars blot over the victor's vision, he squeezing his eyes tight to keep himself from passing out.

"Anything better than being in this hellhole," and then, as an afterthought, "Lazarus, you mind being a good lad and letting me piss all over you?"

Lazarus's eyes widen, eruptions of magma bursting forth from his cerulean pits, his mouth transforming into a sneer. "Why I oughta!"

"Hey, asshole, check your six!" a voice that is certainly not either one of them shouts out. A feminine voice at that.

Hector is dropped unceremoniously onto the ground, clutching his stomach in pain, and Lazarus turns around, but only for a second. Something silver strikes the Head Peacekeeper in the face, and then a second go around hits him straight in the head, he flying to the other side of the room. The victor gapes at the sudden attack, and in the midst, with Lazarus's body thrown to the side, his heart elates at the sight of Kevia Janelle standing there, blonde hair, dressed in some odd sort of leather and polyester suit, a silver pipe in her hands, one of the tips flecked in cardinal dots. His fellow victor exhales heavily, taking a step forward. Appearing behind Kevia is a familiar glimpse of moonlit and oak hair, Hale Cornerstone leaning up against the doorway.

"Hale! Kevia!" he cries out in surprise, pushing himself off of the ground with his hands, an exertion that requires a lot more effort than he's used to.

She reaches him first, they throwing each other's arms around in a hug, Hector squeezing Hale close to him. Kevia admires from afar, gripping onto the bloodied pipe. The two depart, Hector hugging Kevia as well, an action he never thought he'd do in his life. "Hector, you're bleeding," she states, taking a look at him, eyes searching and filled with panic.

"You saved me..." Hector exhales breathlessly. "What are you doing here?"

"It's the Phoenix, Hector," Hale says, gripping his wrist. "Rennie is going to do something major tonight. He's gathering all the tributes in the tribute center, and I think he's going to break them out."

"Then we need to go! We can't just-"

"We're not going that way," Kevia interrupts him with a hand on the shoulder.

"What do you mean?" both of the other victors ask together in unison. Hector notices how eerily quiet the hallway is, the emergency lights on, swirling in their synchronous pattern, a crimson glow swamping over the walls. His entire body is on fire, nerve endings spazzing outwards together. He keeps looking over at Lazarus's unmoving body, and he can see a lump slightly protruding from the buzz cut on the back of his skull, a lump forming in Hector's throat.

Kevia wipes her forehead with the back of her hand, she sweating profusely. "I've received strict orders to take you and Hale back to base. Lance offered to go with me, but he and Valencia will be getting the tributes from the Center instead."

"No!" Hale argues, "We've got to go-"

"Hale, this isn't up for an argument," the District One victor interjects, bringing her eyebrows together. She then directs her attention to Hector. "Can you walk? We're gonna have to run, as I imagine me breaking out two prisoners is going to attract some unwanted attention."

"I can walk," Hector nods his head, but then he looks over at his tormentor for the last two weeks. He knew there had been a darkness residing in Lazarus, but certainly not in the way he's seen it fester and mutate over the last fourteen days, a winged beast with halcyon eyes beading out from an abyss covered in smoldering coals. "What about him?"

"I only knocked him out," Kevia says. "It won't keep him dormant for long, you know. He'll awake and then we'll have every single Peacekeeper in Panem down upon us," Hector takes a step menacingly towards him, she reaching out and touching his hand. "Hector, it isn't worth it. We aren't killers anymore, the Capitol can't force us to kill each other any longer. Save it for those who deserve it."

"He does deserve it," he hisses, gritting his teeth. "Wasn't he the one who physically pushed Arizona in front of the train?"

"He-" she starts, but Hale interrupts them again, frowning with a light gasp.

"Uh, guys, you might want to take a look at this..." her voice rises into a whimper.

All three of them turn their attention to where Hale is pointing, all the water in Hector's mouth drying up. On the television screen tapered to the wall, he having seen it briefly from the cell door but never seeing it on, has now come to life, the Panemian logo bouncing from corner to corner on the screen, the infamous golden insignia on the velvet curtain backdrop. That only means one thing. Presidential announcement. Hector notes the time in the corner of the screen, it being _1:45 A.M. _Doom and death, and all the tributes asleep at this hour.

The logo disappears and instead pops on the face of President Bonnie Rodney, she sitting at her desk in her office, hands folded over each other, she dressed in a sky blue pinstripe suit of some kind, a rather hideous thing, but just seeing her in front of him as his entire body shudder. Kevia tenses to herself, growling slightly. Bonnie's gaze is stuck on something off in the distance, perhaps someone counting her down, and then she nods at the camera, lips freshly coated in a cherry coating of lipstick, nails filed, and her sneer and smirk to an ever perfect point of presentation.

"Good evening citizens of the Capitol," Bonnie starts, and Hector takes a step back towards the wall. "I am sorry for disturbing you so late, but there has been something that has come up to my attention. The traitor Rennie Davis, twin brother to the recently deceased Lewlyn Davis has been spotted in the Capitol, and with him, a group of victors and other officials who are supporting a dangerous cause," she leans forward to the camera, but Hector feels as if she's staring directly at him. "If you see any of the people I am about to list, please do not hesitate in contacting me, the Head Gamemaker Constantine Fallorne, or Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro immediately," and Bonnie flaps the card that she had been holding beneath her hands upwards for her to read off of it. "Rennie Davis, our Master of Ceremonies Pollux Aetos, the victor of the 79th Hunger Games Lance Viel, the victor of the 92nd Hunger Games Criston Pellock, the victor of the 87th Hunger Games Hale Cornerstone, the victor of the 84th Hunger Games Kevia Janelle, the victor of the 77th Hunger Games Hector Merviere, and the victor of the 100th Hunger Games Valencia Shale," that has Hector's eyebrows raised. Pollux Aetos? Valencia Shale? Part of a resistance or a rebellion? "If you have heard your name be called, I expect you in my office no later than 2:15 A.M, where I will bring some terms to you to discuss. Should you fail to show, you'll be labeled an enemy of the state, and promptly executed on sight," Bonnie leans even further into the camera. "The Phoenix will be snuffed out tonight."

Her broadcast ends as quickly as it begun, and the president of Panem disappears on the screen. Hector is about to say something when Kevia swears to herself, and that is when he hears it. The clanging sound of boots and the metal clattering of guns hitting the wall.

"We've got company," Kevia hisses to both of them, and Hector's mouth dries up even more.

Running at them from both sides is a legion of Peacekeepers, ten to fifteen or so on both sides carrying an array of batons, staffs, and some automatic weapons. Kevia brandishes the leap pipe close to her, pulling absentmindedly at Hale to get close to her, Hector balling his hands up into fists. The Peacekeepers file in on either side, trapping them effectively together, the only way being back into the prison cell where Lazarus is slowly starting to stir. There is no way they're fighting out of this alive.

Someone bustles through the gathered Peacekeeper crowd, a familiar wave of stark gray hair, and the face of Head Gamemaker Constantine Fallorne emerges through the wave of Peacekeeper white. Her face is haggard and pulled taut, hair in a bun, she holding some sort of weapon, but Hector has no idea what it is. She looks over at the trio of victors, disappointment flashing across her face. "Stand down," she tells them. Kevia grits her teeth, tightening her grip on the pipe. A few of the Peacekeepers lift their batons, some cocking their rifles, and Constantine holds onto the hilt of her saber, the other hand curling into a fist. "STAND DOWN!" she roars.

Hale presses a hand onto Kevia's shoulder, the victor sighing to herself, dropping the pipe, a Peacekeeper automatically snatching it up. Out of the corner of Hector's eye, he sees Lazarus groan, clutching the back of his head, getting to his feet, before pushing the trio of victors up against the TV, the gaze in his eyes sulfurous. He thought he saw angry just ten minutes ago, he's seen nothing now.

"Fuck..." Hale whispers to the two of them.

She's right, Hector surmises.

_Fuck,_ indeed.

* * *

**_Valencia Shale: Victor of the 100th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

The clock ticking in the corner is starting less and less to resemble that of a clock but more of a heartbeat, Valencia unable to take her eyes off of it. Her winning the Hunger Games culminates to dying at eighteen years old at the hands of a woman she thought she could trust, and she cannot find herself thinking of a more ironic ending. Loyal to the end, she supposes. The Interviews had been indeed glorious, but it seems that the bombshells that affected her own band of tributes strikes the 101st crew as well, for she can feel their anguish and their anger in her chest. The victor stands in front of her bathroom mirror, in her all glass house, a pillar of moonlight spilling down from above into the center of the room. She walks over and takes her sword off the peg, that infamous dastard weapon.

It's out in the open now. Her TV coming on without preamble startles her to death, she having been asleep, but that changes the moment she sees Bonnie's face, blinding white light shrouding out the darkness of her house. The victor changes into a uniform resembling that of what she wore in the training center a year ago, a black and gold long sleeve jacket as if she were about to go rock climbing, she tying her dark hair into a ponytail, taking the sword off of the peg. Valencia wishes she had asked for a hilt with the sword. Bonnie is going to know its her coming to kill her if she has just the weapon and no hilt or scabbard to hide the blade in. It is her plan, after hearing her name come spilling out of the president's mouth. Perhaps the woman still thinks there's hope, perhaps there's a glimmer of reasoning, a fraction of doubt that she can still be saved, so she doesn't expect when Valencia stabs her in the gut with the prized weapon.

She is about to head out the door when there's a clamoring knock coming from the side entrance to the house. Valencia whirls around in its direction, eyes widening. No one is supposed to know of the side entrance. The victor inches closer and closer to the other side of her house, tightening her grip on the sword. Lance has it installed so he can slip in and out unseen if need be, there not being a door handle or anything on the surface for it, it being a panel one pushes in instead, and as far as she's aware, no one is supposed to know about it. So who would that be...?

Valencia reaches the door, tugging on the winch that is supposed to open it, and the moment she sees the cobblestone streets of the outside, she lunges forward with a yell, holding the sword outwards.

"Hey, hey, it's just me!" a male's voice cries out in terror, the tip of her sword going just underneath their jaw, slightly nicking them. Valencia gasps in surprise at the sight of Criston Pellock, the victor from Six, he dressed entirely in black, almost invisible in the night if it hadn't been for his pale skin, his arms up in surrender, he swallowing heavily, the blade moving with the swallow, she seeing a tiny dot of red appear on his skin.

She lowers the blade from his throat, exhaling heavily. "Criston, Jesus, what are you doing here?"

"I-" he tries to explain himself.

It's far too dangerous for this, and she thinks he's way too smart to be playing like a stupid idiot. "Get in here, before you get us both killed!" She grabs him by the front of his shirt, tugging him inside, he yelping in excitement. Valencia wrenches him a bit too hard, he stumbling into the room while she presses on the button that operates the winch, the side panel closing back into place. Ensuring that it is shut, she then turns around to face him, he smiling sheepishly at her.

"Good to see you too," Criston says, dusting off his knees.

"Criston, seriously. What the hell?" Valencia asks him, taking a step closer towards him. Does he have any idea how idiotic he is looking to her right now? She thought he's supposed to be the brains of the operation, but instead he's coming up to her and ruining everything. He reminds her of Maisey, just slightly, the concept of not being able to follow orders. There's a slight stinging in her chest, Valencia realizing that she's really missing that golden haired brat right about now. She's missing all of them right now, all of her allies, even the murderous ones.

He surveys the house, smiling slightly, before walking over to the center of the room, looking at the TV set. "I take it you heard Bonnie's little speech."

"Who hasn't?" What kind of statement is that? What's he doing here?

"This is big, Valencia. This is serious."

"I know. You don't have to tell me that." What does he think she is? A little maiden who'll faint at the sight of blood? He has a lot of nerve thinking he can just show up unannounced after the worst announcement in history is given to her. Valencia goes and sets her sword down on a table, picking up an apple from the basket that hangs off of another peg pressed into the side of the wooden piece of furniture. She tosses one to Criston to. "We're all in hot water," she says.

"Rennie said that Lazarus found one of our flyers out in the Economic District." Criston runs a hand through his hair, pocketing the apple. She shakes her head at the notion, the fruit is going to waste. "And then knowing how good of a little bitch lapdog Lazarus is, he went running."

"Funny, you told me the same thing once," Valencia points out, eyes flashing dangerously. He's unarmed, as far as she can tell, and she has her sword. The victor will not hesitate in doing what needs to be done, to protect herself from the dangers presented in front of her.

He shuffles his hands awkwardly inside his pockets. "That was a long time ago, Valencia."

"It was a month ago, Criston," her voice is razor sharp, tone as cold as ice. She recalls the encounter like it happened only five minutes ago, she at one of Bonnie's charity galas, something for orphaned Capitol children whose fathers and mothers were Peacekeepers dying in the line of duty. A simple water veil, since no Peacekeeper in the Capitol is ever killed on Capitol business. Valencia is keeping to herself as best as she can until Criston saunters to her, drunk out of his mind and smelling like it too, even though he isn't legal to drink yet. It's the hand on her shoulder that does it, the way his eyes leer at her. 'You thought I was Bonnie's little slut, Bonnie's little apprentice in the making," Valencia is surprised she hadn't sucker punched the asshole right then and there, but she locks her jaw at the memory. "She had me believing it too, actually."

How much time has she wasted because she followed Bonnie's orders? Who has she not saved? What lies has she started to fully believe?

"She had everyone believing a lot of things."

"Not everyone," Valencia points out.

"No, not everyone," Criston agrees, shuffling his feet. He gestures to the blade with the jut of his head. "Are you actually thinking of taking the sword with you?" There's a hint of incredulousness shifting among the syllables of his voice.

"Maybe. I worked my ass of trying to get it and I never even used it," Valencia shakes her head, trying to blot out the memories, but no matter how hard she tries, she still hears Galiant's voice break the moment he lands on one of the gate spikes, it protruding out through his chest, stained in vermillion. Or Peri's dying scream, the very same sponsor gift axe cutting her in two down to mid-chest, the moment that writes Valencia Shale as a victor in Panemian history until the end of time. "She let me have it to spite me," she bites down on her tongue. "It worked."

"If she gave it to you as a means of humiliation, why didn't you get rid of it?"

"Criston, you seriously think the president or Constantine or anyone in her corner wouldn't notice her star protégé not hanging onto her famous sword?" Valencia looks at him as if he has six heads. "I'd get called into the office and she'd pinch me by the shoulders and pinch my cheeks and tell me how she can't be disappointed in me or else..." she shudders, holding her arms tight. "I didn't ask to be taken under her wing." She never asked for any of this, to see Persephone burnt alive before her very eyes, or to see Carrion's face shine in the sky, or for her to tell Bonnie at her crowning that the title '_Madam President_' fits her, as that means she's started it all, she's the one who knocked over the first domino that caused the others to collapse after it too.

He doesn't seem to agree, Criston raising an eyebrow, shuffling his hands to his jacket pocket. "You agreed to it, though." His tone is solid, unwavering, unflinching. "When she asked you."

"That was after she murdered the Head Gamemaker, killed her husband, and forced me to watch Arizona get thrown in front of a train!" Valencia shouts at him, getting in his face. She doesn't get it. He doesn't seem to be drunk now, no bloodshot eyes, just his grimness and typical asshole façade. She understands that Criston won the Games young, being thirteen and killing a lot of people is not something anyone at any age can acclimate too easily, but goodness if he is not jaded. She remembers getting along with Maisey more than with this District Six asshat. "Would you have thought it was wise to then tell her off the next day? I have a family, Criston!"

"Some would say you're endangering them now, with this," he points out, shrugging his shoulders.

She frowns to herself, moving back to the table, placing one hand on the table, fingers itching to wrap themselves around the hilt. His eyes follow where her fingers go, she not taking her gaze off of him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It isn't supposed to mean anything, Valencia, I just-" Criston babbles incoherently, a look of panic rising in his eyes. He has wonderfully beautiful eyes, she notes. Persephone did too. Milor's eyes were liquidous sapphires. Peri's eyes, glimmering with terror, Valencia will never be able to blink that look out of her head.

"I'm the one with the sword here, you know," she says, tilting her head to the side, finally seizing the hilt of the weapon, the sword having been three and a half feet long as an impressive blade to skewer someone with. Valencia hates the idea of killing innocents, now, but back then, in the arena? It's a game to her, a sport, and everyone else is a target simply meant to be eliminated, but that is before Persephone kisses her and before Milor's heart touches her soul, and before Marcus saves her life, and before Peri tries to burn everything down. "It wouldn't be that hard, actually. It'd feel like a return to normalcy maybe," Valencia threatens, holding the sword in her hand, stepping back up to Criston, they evenly matched height wise. "One last kill."

"You're bluffing," he says, but the fear in his eyes is evident enough.

"You can try me all you'd like," the female victor taunts, and her eyes flash once more. "Betrayal isn't an old concept for me just yet." The booming echo of the drums in her skull, Maisey's last breath, Hero's dying screams as he holds the Career from Four in his arms, the lasers, and Carrion's rage consuming Marcus whole. She'll never forget that moment in the Hall of Mystery; she'll never forget it.

"I didn't come here to betray you," Criston promises, holding his hands outward to keep her at bay. "I'm here to escort you. Someone knew you'd try and go kill Bonnie all by yourself without any help."

"Oh, really? I don't need an escort."

"Valencia, you broke down into tears at my feet two days ago, begging for me to indoctrinate you with us," he tilts his head to the side some, with a frown, but she's unsure how to placate his voice. Is it concern or mockery? "You looked absolutely terrified."

"Because I was, Criston," she admits. The slap lingers on her face, but it is the president's threat that absolves any sort of fantasy. It is a knock to her pride to admit, but Valencia has nothing to hide anymore. She believes she's fallen complacent into the good graces of the Madam, and that she can say what she needs to say and do what she needs to do to stay alive, but it is all shattered with one single setting down of the phone, and a glove to the cheek. "I've been watched like a hawk for the last year. If I breathe, Bonnie's aware of it." Somehow, even the absurdity of it makes it sound even more realistic. "I can't go home and see my family; I can't even call them." Valencia has no keepsakes with her from home, from One, to see her parents. She's forbidden to speak to them, as Bonnie does not want her spilling secrets... but she wouldn't, she's a good little Capitol follower.

"We've all been watched like hawks," Criston lifts his head.

"It's different," she chews on the inside of her cheek, before putting the blade sharp end first on the floor, balancing her elbows on the hilt. "Are you the one who decided I needed an escort? Because it was the 'gentlemanly' thing to do?"

"Orders from Lance."

_Bullshit. _"Lance knows I can take care of myself."

"Lance is the one who told me you'd go and try to be the hero without help. He knows you."

"I got the highest score, and I won," Valencia says. When she tells Constantine this, it is the resurgence of negative memories, the possibility of puke appearing on her shoes, but here, _here _it is a different story, it is her proving a point, her not needing to be treated like some child, for she certainly isn't one, not in the league of chess and corpses where all the adults are failing at it, including the won standing right in front of her. "I'd be able to beat you in a fight right here, so don't even think about telling me I can't take care of myself."

"You'll have to excuse me for being blunt, but I still don't fully know why you're on our side, Valencia," Criston crosses his arms over his chest. It is a stab wound to the heart, she gasping weakly, stumbling back some, nearly tripping over herself. "You're a Career from District 1, you've just won a Quarter Quell, and are living in the Capitol," he shakes his head, sighing. "I'm no psychologist, but that sounds like a good life to me, and you're going to stick your neck out with the rest of us?"

"Just because I've been more privileged than others doesn't mean I can't stick with the rebels?" she asks, her voice betrayed, impossibly soft.

"I only meant-"

How dare he! Valencia already spent a year of her life debating over if she had led the Careers in an arena incorrectly, from having people question her decisions to betraying the whole of the group to making side romances without thinking about how it'd affect the group dynamic, to nearly _dying _five times - Blake at the Cornucopia, Marcus's betrayal in the Hall of Mystery, the trash can mutt without Annabellina's sacrifice, the hallway to the outside world, and Peri's burning boomerang - and winning, only to be swept up in the talons of a blonde harpy who changes her hair color, threatens her loved ones, and twists the knife so expertly she should've been a Career candidate herself.

"Look, I understand your little shtick is to be a pessimistic asshole, but it's not cool now. How dare you question me!" Valencia shouts again, but she stands right back up in his face. "You're right, I grew up in One. Being a victor was all I wanted, but I also had a heart. I didn't enjoy killing people, I didn't want to have to murder them if they weren't trying to murder me." Maybe he'll believe her, maybe he won't, but she's not going to let another minute pass with him having these tainted preconceptions floating between them, especially if they'll be working together. "I didn't mean to kill Galiant, when I was going for the sword, but it happened." His scream echoes in her head, briefly. "Blake nearly killed me, and had Marcus not intervened, Peri Florence would be standing here instead, and you'd certainly have her on your cause too." She'll be haunted forever by the swinging chain, the light in the girl from Seven's eyes, and that final sickening swipe, silver and flesh and blood together in a medley of tragedy. "I have gotten to see things I don't like, and I certainly don't condone the Games any longer. That's my reasoning."

Valencia catches her breath, having started to lose track of herself for a moment there. Criston doesn't say anything, he leaning up against the couch that faces the TV set, arms folded over each other, before narrowing his eyes at her. She rocks on her heels for a moment, frowning, waiting for him to say something, _anything! _Then, after what feels like a thousand years in which the pillar of moonlight has shifted some so now he's entirely in the shadow, as is she, separated by a column of naturalism, until he says...

"You passed."

"I- what?" Valencia frowns, furrowing her eyebrows together. _Passed? _Did she just spill her heart out and he not even care?

"You passed. I was testing you," Criston says, still sheathed in the shadows. "Rennie wasn't fully convinced you were on our side. Of course, he'll more than gladly accept any help we get, but he didn't believe you."

"Rennie didn't- he didn't believe me?" her voice is impossibly soft, hurt lacing her features. Does everyone else share this viewpoint?

"You have to see where he's coming from," he tries the opposite end, holding a hand out to her.

She shakes her head back and forth, a lump forming in her throat. "No, Criston, I don't. Lance and Kevia are a part of this, and Kevia has never struck me as someone who'd believe in this! Hale is too! But I'm questioned? Seriously?" That's not fair!

"Valencia, I didn't get to make the rules for this. I'm just a bystander." He starts to shuffle for something inside his coat pocket, but she's not paying him any mind, turning away from Criston, shaking her head, rage starting to burn in her veins. Doubt, doubt, doubt, _doubt! _

"Well, I'll tell Rennie he can take his regards and shove them up his a-" Valencia yells, pointing a finger in the air, and then she turns around, the rage quelling in her throat, fizzling out at the sight of Criston holding something out for her, it wrapped up in some sort of paper mache covering, like the gold on her outfit. "What's that?"

"It's a package for you."

"No shit," Valencia rolls her eyes. "What is it?"

"Take it," Criston insists.

"I'm not taking it until you tell me what it is."

"It's something Rennie wanted you to have instead of carrying the sword with you. So, you aren't taking it with you to the Mansion," the victor from Six explains.

"What is it?"

Criston sighs to himself, looking down at the floor for a moment, his hand being the only part protruding out into the moonlight. When he looks back at her, she can see his jade eyes flashing in the darkness, a serpent's final look before it swallows a rat whole. "It's a gun, Valencia."

"A gun? I- I don't-" Her entire world shakes for a spin, Valencia gasping and bringing her hand back.

"Valencia, _take it,_" Criston's voice is pleading with her, and he steps further into the light.

Valencia seizes the package, it feeling heavy in her hands, before unwrapping the golden paper mache slowly. She inhales sharply when the barrel of the gun glints off of the moonlight pillar, she pulling the wrapper away, it falling to the floor without a sound. She holds the gun in her hands, the grip of the pistol wrapped firmly in leather, the stark black peering back at her, the rest of the pistol a clinking quarter on the sidewalk. Her hands tremble, as she tosses it from side to the other. It's a Glock, Valencia able to see that without much studying of the weapon; she's seen the array of weapons in the Peacekeeper Barracks, the one time she's stepped over that dire threshold. An unspoken darkness emanates from the weapon, she almost dropping it.

"It feels evil, holding it," she says.

"And the weapons in the Games didn't?" Criston asks.

"I wasn't thinking about that back then. I was just focused on survival."

"What's different now?"

"I'm focused on Panem's survival, not just my own," Valencia locks eyes with him, and she takes the holster Criston holds out to her.

"Are you ready?" he asks her, stepping into the moonlight.

"No. Are you?" she admits, and she slides the gun into its holster, clipping it to her pocket, pulling her shirt over the weapon. Her heart is beating in her chest faster than ever before, and all she can replay in her head is Arizona and Hale's screams from the last moment when normalcy is Panem is shattered, but all she can see is Bonnie's smirking face, and the bullet hole Valencia imagines she'll place there on her own volition.

"Nope, and I won't ever be," Criston smiles cheerfully at her. "C'mon, we're expected."

His cheeriness does not take her mind off of the fact that the moment she steps out of her house, she might not ever be coming back.

* * *

**_Bonnie Rodney: President of Panem P.O.V_**

* * *

Deception. Lies. Betrayal. Deceit. The rage she is feeling in her bones is indescribable, Bonnie has no idea how to describe what is coursing through her, except that it has all gone to shit, it is all wrong and she cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel any longer. She switches out of the sky blue pinstripe suit thing she's wearing, something Constantine tells her to switch into, but frankly, she feels like she looks like the Head Gamemaker and all she needs is a cane and one of those wicker hats to complete the look. Bonnie tries to keep the emotion in her throat down when reading the names, but she's certain that a few strained gasps escape, but at this point she doesn't know if she can believe herself or not on how she's acting. Nothing makes sense anymore.

She misses Calhoun. "_But you killed him..._" she thinks to herself, biting on the inside of her cheek, before frowning, before saying aloud, "He killed himself. He did it to himself." However, it is the truth. He'd know what to do, he'd know how to appease the crowd wishing for his head, in which those people certainly existed but somehow they never got any further than the communication phases, but he never spoke about it over hushed dinners forking between a few measly green beans. Somehow she steps into the league, without doing anything wrong mind you, and she's being crucified for it, some sort of ragtag group of people who believe they can twist the knife just so and she'll give up. Calhoun would know what to do, but he'd give in, he'd fall to their demands and be sniveling. He'd be weak.

Bonnie Rodney is not weak. Her mother tells her so, hands digging into her shoulder blades, fingers curved into talons, the smell of rose water hinting in her mother's decaying platinum blonde hair, turning into ashy and pale like a sliver of the moon. "_You're strong,_" she is told. "_You're stronger than he is. The books will remember you, not him._"

_"What if I am remembered for the wrong reasons?" _Bonnie recalls asking her mother that question, and she'll never forget how her mother never responds. She is left hanging, without a notion on how the future will turn out. What did her mother mean by never responding? What did any of that mean? She has no idea, and her head is starting to hurt. The president is in her office, the camera rolled away, the filming crew going back home with her assurances that everything is all right, but this is a lie she spits right through her venom-stained teeth, and she knows she's spreading falsehoods. Everything is _not all right, _and it hasn't been right ever since her little girl came into this world.

The baby is put to bed in the far side of the mansion, away from all the screaming and shouting. No matter who shows up, Bonnie has given strict orders for the nurses to never open the door regardless of who it is unless they specifically ask for a password, and Bonnie has decided to name the password 'mutt'.

"They think they can do me in like this?" she rambles to herself, shaking her head. "What do they take me for? A fool?" The president looks at her reflection in the windows of her office. She's caught herself staring out the window a lot these past couple of days, stuck in her high tower like a Rapunzel who is affecting every outside event in the shadows. The Games will continue like normal, she'll crown a victor, and these inferior insurgents will feel electricity barbecue their skin alive while she drinks from her martinis, the victor crown hanging on the other palm, and the victor will watch with objectified horror. That would be their fate if they are to stray from the path. Valencia Shale has strayed from the path, but not for much longer. "I'll show them! I'll show them all!"

Bonnie is unsure who she is more upset with at this point, when she looks at all the faces splayed out in front of her. Saying Valencia's name to the camera is one of the hardest things she's ever done, as pulling the trigger that fires the shot that ends her husband's life is one of the easiest actions one can do, to end their marriage. Rennie she knew had the taste for rebellion, as she saw it in his eyes whenever he's around his sister, but perhaps she had misread him, for the surprise in her throat at knowing the woman who cut his tongue out, his _sister, _is somehow his lover and they share a bed together.

"_We shared a bed together..._" Bonnie thinks to herself ruefully. The innocence, the splash of vibrant cardinal hair over her shoulder and against the pillow, and his soft sighs... Bonnie believes she has something special until she tries kissing him that day in the Gamemaker Center, surrounded by the cold machinery and their lab coats, that he turns from her. She vows then and there that it is her personal missive to ruin him, even if he's a freed man or not. Him being the leader of some revolution is just the icing on the cake.

Pollux is a mystery to her, but she also has him figured out easily on the same token. She thinks he's a coward, switching sides from wherever the grass is green to pasture. He hates Lewlyn with a passion, yet finds himself an ally with her on ending the Games, and then he crawls back to Bonnie when the going gets tough and his neck is on the line, but now he's jumping ship once more. She'd like to put a toothpick into his eye.

"Bonnie!" _Speaking of the devil._

She turns around at the sound of her name, and she takes quick inhale at the fact that it is not just Pollux who enters. Behind him she sees Rennie, but his hair is no longer bright red, the brightest blond she's ever seen, brighter than her own. Valencia, Criston, and Lance following right after the two of them. Five versus one. No matter. Lazarus and Constantine will be back shortly, and it'll feel like a proper chess game soon.

"You came? I didn't think you had it in you," Bonnie smirks to herself, moving out of her office and into the living room. "I didn't think any of you had it in you."

"What's this all about, Bonnie? How dare you-" Pollux starts, but she is not going to let him play this game. He's arrived with all the other convicted, so she'll simply stamp him as guilty by association. He's dressed in one of his finer suits, a dark midnight and pale ruby outfit, but his hair is not done, and his gaze is furious. Bonnie looks over the three victors briefly, but Valencia is not holding eye contact with her. They're dressed like they're about to enter the arena for a second time. That idea briefly crosses her mind, but is an impossibility, as well as a repeat. They'd all be dead by the 125th Games regardless.

"Oh do shut up, Pollux. I know you really aren't the best liar," Bonnie decides to cut to the chase, crossing her arms over each other, before going to the back wall against the couch. She is not looking at them as she speaks, instead directing her attention to the bookshelf from where Calhoun's body had rested. It is a lie, that she buries her husband out on some hill overlooking a blooming meadow with a sunrise to greet his tombstone. His body, in the trash bag she finds big enough for it, has been dumped into the river, to be dried out with the rocks and the shale. "I know about your group called the Phoenix. I know what you plan to do and what you wish to do, but I'm here to tell you it won't work."

"You couldn't have just said that to us over the announcement? You just had to make it some big thing?" Criston asks, raising an eyebrow. The look on his face is one of neutrality, but she sees the way Rennie's eyebrows placate together. He knows that she knows.

"Criston, I'll cut out your tongue if you continue on-" she starts, pointing a manicured finger at him.

"Bonnie, listen to us," it is Lance Viel's turn to go for the jugular, but Bonnie isn't paying him any attention. She notices that Rennie dressed in some sort of golden uniform, as if he is wearing a cape. Does he have any idea how ridiculous he looks? He's staring directly at her, but as far as she can tell, the look in his eyes is just that of a burning hatred, a hatred she's seen so many times it means nothing to her. His hands are inside his pockets, but that is just him trying to act natural. Pah. As if.

"Am I speaking to you, Lance? No?" Bonnie diverts her attention to Valencia, the girl having her right hand by her right side, the left tucked underneath her chin, she finding the tapestry on the curtains to be most interesting. Lance's eyes flash a sharp sterling silver, but she still will not look at him. He's been nothing but a blip on her radar, another shining star from a decade ago that has fallen off of the gravy train, skinning his face in the meantime. "Then shut up."

Rennie, from his stance in the corner, signs out something, and although Bonnie truthfully has no idea what he's saying completely, she figures it is something menacing, something evil. Something scandalous, filled with viper venom. "_You're not going to win, Bonnie._"

"As I was saying Mr. Pellock, I-" she ignores him.

"Bonnie, listen to us!" Pollux cuts in, taking a step forward, perhaps a moment of bravery, or foolishness, as she sees it. "This is going to be pointless. You know what's going to happen the moment we leave this room."

That is genuinely the funniest thing she has heard all week, Bonnie tilting her head back and laughing, blonde hair touching her back lightly. "Who said anything about any of you leaving?" Did all of these people inhabiting the living room of her mansion take drugs as a collective group before marching in?

"_The same can be said for you too._" Rennie did indeed have his tablet with him, he pulling it out and typing away on the keys like a madman. Pollux and Lance shut up, standing there, fuming, nostrils flaring, while Rennie rights himself from the wall, holding the tablet out as if he were offering a holy scripture to her. A time long ago, reminiscent of auburn hair and a lab coat and fresh kisses that smell of spring water and lilac. No longer, though. Bonnie's subservient in that time, and she'll take her leadership and freedom for wherever it comes.

She is unable to hide the coo of her disappointment that builds in her throat, no matter how hard she tries to wash it away. "I once thought you were some innocent sweet soul, Rennie, I did," she shakes her head, frowning slightly. "And that you were the biggest idiot for not letting me kiss you after we had slept together all that time ago." Valencia, Lance, and Criston all look at Rennie with wide eyes, Bonnie smirking to herself. The silent fighter didn't tell everyone the truth? "But I was wrong. You're just like the entire lot of them. Stupid, worthless, and not deserving of living."

"Madam President-" the Master of Ceremonies tries intervening once again.

"You don't get to call me that anymore! You lost that right the moment you decided to buy into lies!" Bonnie turns to him, spit flying from her mouth. How dare he! Calling her by her royal title is reserved for those who are loyal to the throne, those who are loyal to the country. Calhoun had no problem with people calling him by his first name, but she finds it to be extremely disrespectful; he has a title for a reason and her husband is throwing the towel in without a fight. How is anyone supposed to be respected or loved if they allow their boundaries to constantly be squashed and redesigned by those without the knowledge on how to do so?

"The poll numbers-"

"Don't try to bullshit me with that, Pollux. You turned on me long before that." The question is, however, _when? _

"_And why do you think that is?_" Rennie types out, and he is incapable of hiding the smirk that now crosses his face. He has never been good with hiding his emotions, truly, and without the ability to speak, Bonnie can see the terror that hides behind his generally cool complexion, the way he shakes and trembles and doubts... Bonnie wonders why she used to think it would be hard taking the Capitol for herself, they all were simple minded idiots who needed an automated security system to tell them where their front door is. "_Why do you think everyone you thought you could trust is turning your back on you?" _

She shrugs her shoulders. Everyone knows, at least, those standing in her living room, but it is so much fun to stir the pot. "I don't know. Please, do tell me."

Rennie drops the tablet for this again, but Pollux translates for him, keeping his gaze directly at the president, but if she wants anyone to think it affects her, they're sorely wrong. "_You killed Calhoun. Not Hale and Arizona. You killed my sister, not Hale and Arizona._" However, he decides to use the technological device that _she_ gave him all those years ago for the punchline. "You_ wanted to be president, but you could only do so by killing everyone else first."_

"I can call you a liar, you know."

"We're not here to say if it's the truth or not; we know it's the truth!" Lance interrupts once more.

"Lance, you really are hard of hearing. Was I talking to you?" How did someone this irritable ever win the Games, how?

He curls his hands into fists, eyes widening, and Bonnie is afraid for a moment that he is about to lunge across the Victorian carpet and strangle her to death. "I-"

The victor is cut short however as at that opportune moment, a collected group of people walk through the double doors to the living room, Bonnie's eyebrows lifting up in happiness at the familiar faces that appear. Constantine leads the group, followed by Lazarus who is holding a rag to the back of his head, his nose having looked like it leaked blood, the way a river of dried crimson stains his pale flesh. Behind them are three faces that are surprises to her, as the haggard looks of victors Hale Cornerstone and Hector Merviere, sidelined by Kevia Janelle - _Kevia... you dumb bitch you _\- who has a sheepish smile on her face. Behind the three victors is a collection of six Peacekeepers, the first three with their pistols out, trained expertly on the small of their backs.

Bonnie nods at the two Capitol officials for permission to speak.

"Madam President," Constantine starts, nodding back at her, a gentle smile on her face. "We found these three trying to sneak out of the Capitol. It looks like someone else has turned on you."

"Bonnie," Kevia greets her, shuffling from side to side, a nasty cut slicing down her cheek. Bonnie looks at her former friend with a mix of awe and horror, as goodness, she looks dreadful without makeup. She is sure she doesn't have to ask why her favorite victor that does not have a name like Valencia's is standing next to accused criminals. She, however, cannot hide the look of displeasure that ripples across her own features, nor the bitter acidic taste that rises in the back of her throat. By all of Panem's might, if she were to puke now...

"Kevia," the president regards her, before she looks at Rennie slyly. The other three victors shuffle nervously on the other side of the room. "You thought you were so clever, didn't you, Rennie? To get every victor and official near me on your side and then start some sort of coup?" she lowers one of her hands, bringing them together instead, folding them in front of her stomach. "Do you take me for an idiot?"

"Well, given the fact that you didn't know about it until Lazarus started beating me up and-" Hector pipes up, an amused look in his eyes.

"Mr. Pietro!" Her voice is thunderous, an order that can be heard all across the Capitol. The Head Peacekeeper turns around and slugs the victor in the face, another splatter of scarlet covering the tile as Hector reels back into the lines of soldiers. He's prodded with the gun again, returning back to his normal position.

He gives Lazarus a glare that is so pitiful, Bonnie almost laughs. "You know, just telling me to shut up might work too."

"Any report on the tributes, Head Gamemaker?" she then asks her third in command.

"Last heat scan showed them all accounted for in their beds," Constantine declares proudly. It is the wrinkle in their plans, when the three of them go to the drawing board. Rennie is going to utilize the tributes, surely, but Bonnie has no idea how that's possible. It is a heavy decision, a weighted decision, to draw every Peacekeeper back from the training center and towards the Mansion and City Circle, but it is for the best, as she knows her announcement would not go unanswered, and as she expects, they all flock to her like hummingbirds to nectar, dressed in their sweet little rebellion outfits, carrying sneers and glares, but of course, none of it will work.

She is not going to surrender so easily.

"And when was this?"

"Ten minutes ago."

"Good," Bonnie claps her hands together, turning to face the assembled victors and other citizens that she will now refer to as degenerates. She goes to stand near the doorway to her office, careful not to step too far out of protective reach. "I brought you all here for a reason, if you'll listen."

"No. We're not going to listen," Hale pipes up from her spot, but Bonnie does not call for Lazarus to beat her across the face. A cry of defiance isn't necessarily an insult. She needs to let them all believe that hope is still there, kindled and diminishing, but there all the same, and the more punches thrown, the more blood spilled, the worse the fire gets, consuming all in its burning wake. "That's what the Phoenix is for, so we don't have to listen to your lies anymore, Bonnie."

"Does your insipid attitude ever get boring to you? Aren't you tired of being a little bitch who complains and pisses and moans all the time?" she asks the victor. Oh how she enjoys hearing Hale cry, her sobs rebounding alongside the granite walls of her prison cell. An idiot, definitely, conspiring for murder right underneath her nose.

"I could say the same thing to you, too."

Bonnie makes a step back into the center of the living room, eyes flashing a stormy sea blue, she lifting her head up in triumph. "I have your children, Hale, and don't think for a second I won't think about cutting their throats so I could get a good night sleep." She has a child of her own, but when she looks at Hale and Arizona's children, Elias and Arianne, goodness aren't they gorgeous? With the few right touches and influences they could become Capitol citizens, to toss their parents' filthy name in the dirt. Truthfully, she wants more children, and she had known about them for far too long to let them wither and decay and go to waste in the hands of some Hunger Games victors. "Gods, they're so annoying! 'Where's mommy? I miss Dad'! I just want to shake them by the head."

"You lay a hand on those kids-" Hale threatens, about to charge forward, but Kevia grips her tightly around the soldiers.

"And you'll what?" Bonnie smirks, but she's silenced the other woman into submission. It feels good to make someone else suffer what she suffered underneath Calhoun for so long. It had been like feeding a rabbit carrots, slowly nibbling away what offers are given. He makes her the head designer of the mutts, a morsel or taste of power, but no children, no possible idea that it'd be the last offer she'd ever receive until she takes it for herself. "No, please finish that statement."

"This is a waste of time. You're wasting everyone's time, and Panem's!" Kevia shouts out, not expecting that in the slightest.

"Exactly my point!" the president smiles elatedly, thrusting a finger in the air. "I brought you all here for a reason, as I've said, because I want to talk."

"To talk?" Pollux frowns, bringing his eyebrows together.

"A merge in the middle."

"_Of what sorts?" _Rennie has eyebrows piqued in curiosity, the other gathered victors sharing this interest as well. _Aha, _the tangled rope tightens.

"Call it a truce, a truce between enemies that could be allies," Bonnie continues, although she nearly throws up saying that.

"Whatever you're selling, I'm not buying," Pollux shakes his head in dissent, frowning.

"_No. Hear her out._"

"Rennie!"

"_I want to hear what she has to say._" The ex-Avox holds up a hand, and then he brings his attention back to her, as it should be.

"You being a grown up? I would have never guessed this!" Bonnie claps her hands together excitedly.

"What do you want to say, Bonnie? Spit it out," Valencia breaks her silence, turning her hands into fists by her sides. An odd pause passes over all the collected bodies in the room for a moment, as Bonnie has never heard the Quarter Quell victor sound so disgruntled, or vile in fact.

Bonnie chews on the inside of her cheek. She's rehearsed this a thousand times in her head, always faulting on one particular part here or there, but if any of them are truly sensible people, those that would see the ridiculousness of her ascending to the Panemian throne has evolved into, they'll accept her terms.

"This little insurrection you wish to perform? Scrap it, the entire notion of it, as if it never existed and bury it beneath your heel," she starts off, but it already has a few of the victors, Criston and Kevia respectively, scoffing. "Rennie will be executed for treason and warmongering, but on his hands and the blood that has already been spilled for my presidency, no one else shall be killed." Rennie locks eyes with her, but Bonnie is incapable of reading the emotion that courses back between them. "Pollux remains as Master of Ceremonies until I decide he has outlived his usefulness, and I'll find a suitable replacement for him," she knows that it would be torture, kept at arms length under the threat of losing his own tongue. That'd be a sense of justice, irony, perhaps... the Interviewer losing the ability to speak... "You victors who have been led to his side through warmongering and deceit shall be forgiven, but placed under house arrest for every year that you live except when it is time to come mentor for the Games, in which you'll always have a Peacekeeper escort," she raises an eyebrow, lifting a finger. "But I'll spare one."

Valencia frowns, one hand still by her back pocket. "Who would that be?"

Bonnie turns to her protégé like lightning, causing the victor to jump. "You, my darling, Valencia, you," a lone tear slides down her cheek. Out of this mess, out of all of this madness, this is what has hurt the worst, losing the person she believes to be malleable, the one that should be the easiest to twist around her finger. "I know there's a heart in you, sweetheart. I know you don't believe in his lies or what any of them have told you. They've corrupted you, you've been tainted," Bonnie's voice cracks. "I've been good to you, I have been more than good to you. You do not turn your back on the hand that feeds you, Valencia, you know that's the right thing to do." Valencia's face is unreadable, cold, a snuffed out flame. "I forgive you, for anything you've ever done. You're the daughter I've always wanted."

"You have a daughter, Bonnie," is all she gets in return, and Bonnie's heart shatters like a piece of fine China.

"And what if we refuse this offer?" Criston asks, folding his arms.

"Refusal wouldn't be the smart choice here, Mr. Pellock. You can see that, clearly," she wags a finger. Refusal? How stupid would they be? "Lazarus, if you would?"

"Failure to meet or the refusal of Madam Rodney's wishes shall bring ultimate war to Panem and the total destruction of everyone you love and know. Resistance will not be tolerated, it is futile," the Head Peacekeeper recites, the good little dog he is. Bonnie knows she needs to reward him sometime soon.

"_No._" Rennie's response is immediate, and he does not need to use his tablet for this. She knows what it means.

"Excuse me?" Bonnie reels back as if she has been slapped.

"_You heard me. No.__ We will not agree to those rules,_" the Avox reiterates, and Valencia's smile grows.

"This isn't a transaction," the president shakes her head, frowning. No. No, this is all wrong. This is not going to plan!

Pollux moves closer to Rennie, standing up straight. Lazarus moves closer to her, his hands tensing. "You said we'd meet you in the middle. We have terms of our own."

"You do?" Constantine squeaks out in surprise.

Rennie pulls out his tablet, but he must've already typed out his answer before Bonnie finishes her speech. "_Surrender the presidency, and let a democracy be instilled instead, the people voting on who to lead. You will not be killed, but you will be arrested. Admit to all the crimes you've committed, and you and your daughter will live."_

"She can't help but laugh. The lunacy of this, the _pure lunacy! _"There is something else that I've forgotten about," she points out, walking back to the corner of her office. "I figured you would refuse, so I've thrown a little loophole for myself." The glass ceiling she wishes to break, the glass ceiling that'll rain shards of halcyon and porcelain from above, to flip the switch, to throw the switch, as Constantine advises her, the moment the flyer passes her desk. It is where the tracker goes, why it goes in early.

"Bonnie, what are you talking about?" Valencia frowns, but Pollux gasps as the victor asks her question.

"One-fourth," Bonnie says cryptically.

"One-fourth? What does that mean?" Kevia voices the same confusion.

"The innocents. One fourth of them must die," the president continues, before turning her head to the victor from Six. "Mr. Pellock, what's one fourth of twenty-four?"

"Six," he answers, that being a truly easy mathematical question.

"No! Bonnie, you wouldn't!" Pollux screams at her, and she has never seen the Master of Ceremonies angrier in her entire time of knowing him. Forget being scared of Lance Viel; he's the one who is going to rip her to pieces, limb by limb. He'll have to reach her first.

"What are you talking about?" Valencia bridges the question again.

"I threw the switch in the Gamemaker Center before you came here, a timer that'll kill one-fourth of the innocents if you were to refuse," Bonnie says, in a sing-song voice, smiling to herself. "It'd make you heel!"

"You murderous bitch!" Pollux roars, and this time his face turns nine shades of pulsating crimson.

"What are you all talking about?" Valencia repeats.

"_You've gone too far."_ Rennie signs, he shuffling his hands into his jacket. "Your_ madness ends here!"_

"I told you, accept my terms or die. Which will you choose?" Bonnie leans forward, but everybody starts moving at once, everyone talking at once.

"Rennie?" Pollux tugs on the Avox's shoulder, but it is not doing much. "Rennie, what are you doing?"

"Valencia, take Hector and Hale and-" Lance starts telling his charge from One, Bonnie looking over at the Head Peacekeeper.

"Mr. Pietro, please, if you will, execute the charges you have in your custody-"

She never gets to finish the statement, as Rennie pulls his hands out of his pockets, something glowing in his hands. _Criston's package, the night of the tribute parade. _

"RENNIE, NO!" Pollux screams, stepping forward in unison with Criston.

Bonnie falls back in terror, Lazarus grabbing her by the waist. Constantine is screaming orders, something about mutts in tunnels and killing everyone, everyone must die, but she cannot hear it over the sound of her own heart beating inside her head. Something metallic flies out of Rennie's hands, sticking to the low ceiling of the mansion, it beeping red in one corner of the device. Pollux reaches Rennie, tugging at him, wrenching him back. Lazarus turns Bonnie away from the center of the room, a few of the Peacekeepers still standing, stuck in shock to do anything, as Valencia and Lance reach Kevia, Hector, and Hale, pulling them along. Criston's mouth is open in a silent scream, but Bonnie cannot stop thinking.

_Where's her child? Where's her child? Where's her husband?_

Rennie holds some sort of cylindrical device in his hands, a stark obsidian, before Pollux wrenches him back with a scream, the Avox pressing down on the trigger.

The bomb attached to the roof explodes in an upheaval of sulfur and rock. Rennie lets out another bloodcurdling mix of a scream and a roar, before another explosion goes off in Bonnie's office. There's a sudden groan as the bombs and bullets in the air detonate, filling the sky with smoke, and then the roof of the Mansion caves in.

The Phoenix Rebellion has come.

The 101st Hunger Games have come undone.

* * *

_**Tribute List (Boy - Girl)**_

District 1: **Cyril Barther **[_Submitted by thorne98_] / **Satin Spinel **[_Submitted by Mistycharming_]

District 2: **Aris Lindel **[_Submitted by grimbutnotalways_] / **Maren Johnson **[_Submitted by Crashed Ice24_]

District 3: **Tach Andon **[_Submitted by Audmirable_] / **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 4: **Jules Harper **[_Submitted by DMonkey1607_] / **Anahita Cascade **[_Submitted by Reader Castellan_]

District 5: **Seth Cables **[_Submitted by Nemris_] / **Sophiana Delarosa **[_Submitted by Santiago Poncini20_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara **[_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 7: **Roanoke Arkus **[_Submitted by Guesttwelve_] / **Sage Dagoba **[_Submitted by AlexFalTon_]

District 8: **Cambric Vogel **[_Submitted by dyloccupy_] / **Magdalena Bertha **[_Submitted by Tiger outsider_]

District 9: **Jason Lacey **[_Submitted by ilvidis_] / **Audhild Olthono **[_Submitted by 66asmvr_]

District 10: **Rodric Oxford **[_Submitted by Alecxias_] / **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

District 11: **Vanya Vasiliev **[_Submitted by TheMayflyProject_] / **Zola Taonga **[_Submitted by Apple1230_]

District 12: **Mirek Bosco **[_Submitted by curiousclove_] / **Bloom Estrada **[_Submitted by LordShiro_]

...

**_Capitol Cast of Characters_**

_President of Panem: _**Bonnie Rodney**

_Leader of the Phoenix Revolution: _**Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies:_ **Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games: _**Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games:_ **Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: _**Hale Cornerstone**

_Victor of the 77th Hunger Games: _**Hector Merviere**

_Victor of the 84th Hunger Games: _**Kevia Janelle**

_Head Gamemaker:_ **Constantine Fallorne**

_Head Peacekeeper: _**Lazarus Pietro**

* * *

**That was Chapter #23: Viva La Revolution! I, ladies and gentlemen, have had this idea in the back of my head ever since I wrote Calhoun and Lewlyn's conversation back in Slaughter about ending the Hunger Games... what would happen if the tributes weren't in an arena, but thrown into a warzone? When I said that the Capitol and Tribute storylines would become one, I wasn't lying, I wasn't joking, it's the truth. Bombs and Bullets, my fellow readers, is an SYOT with no arena, they're thrown out into the world and they'll have to survive. Wonder why, submitters, I asked if they could survive a war-zone? Here's your answer. Rennie has done the unthinkable. He has started the revolution. The Phoenixes have taken flight, and it'll be messy.**

**Just because it is not an arena story does not mean everyone's safe, and as the addition of the Capitol cast has been included, they're on the chopping block too. I wanted to spoil this so badly, you have _no idea, you have no idea how hard this was to keep it a secret. _To all of those who have reached this point, I hope this has caught you off guard, but I hope you stick around despite this being non-conventional. I promise you, tributes will be seen, and we're returning to them too for Chapter #24, but I shall not spoil the title, as I didn't spoil this one beforehand. I also have changed the summary on my profile to reflect this start, so I hope you all caught on. Please review ladies and gentlemen, it'll mean the world! I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	24. The Kill Switch (Phoenix II)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here - yes, I am not dead, but I sure as heck feel like it lol - with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #24: The Kill Switch. Yes, the name is foreboding, yes you all should be afraid. Last chapter, #23: Viva La Revolution, was a Capitol centered chapter where the thermometer broke, and Rennie has officially, alongside the other members of The Phoenix, have brought a rebellion to Bonnie's feet. Our - ****_your _****\- poor tributes are caught in the crossfire. This chapter might be a bit all over the place, word count wise, as I have a lot I need to have happen pretty much at once in a short burst of time, but I'm gonna try to have it be over a low level of 7k if I can help it.**

**I will say, as a forewarning as I've felt some murmuring floating around, to just trust the process I am bringing ourselves through. This will follow a Slaughter like style where we will alternate between Capitol and tribute centric storylines, but truthfully, they're all in the ****_same _****storyline. I do not recommend skipping Capitol chapters as you'll just be confused. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #24: The Kill Switch.**

* * *

_ ~ And so sayeth the Lord, all sinners get their deaths in due time, and some are sooner and quicker than others._

**_Amaris O'Hara: District 6 Female P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

She has a headache from all the voices rising up to have their oh so ever important words heard. Amaris stands in front of the bathroom mirror, the light jacket she had put on to greet the devil still shrouding her shoulders, and several lone tears now painting the side of her face, crystal lights reflecting back melancholy onto the shimmering surface. She hates him. She hates stupid freaking Ponty Carr so much, he thinking he can just step up to her and rest a hand on her shoulder, or to try and hold her hands... who does he think he is? Just because he has the money and privilege of being on top of the world in Six does not grant him the right to judge her. After wiping away the tears, in which the grim frown on her face has yet to disappear, she goes back to her room, Ponty still staying up and standing against that column over by the window.

Amaris gets perhaps only twenty minutes of sleep before Ponty comes into her room, shaking her awake. She almost breaks his wrist, truthfully, eyes burning a volcanic black, as she looks up at him. However, the look on his face is not what she expects, it being one of clouded concern, a tinge of worry hiding in the way his brow furrows together, and the heaviness of his face. Amaris believes he's intruded into her bedroom without knocking to cope a feel - certainly not to apologize, he doesn't strike her as an apologist - but whatever insult she goes to spew at him dies on her tongue when she sees, just through the crack of the doorway, Vanya Vasiliev in their living room, face doused in shadow, and the look of terror is palpable enough that she tastes it in the back of her throat like battery acid.

It is something about a letter and a command and a video going around, and maybe the end of the world, but there's something else involved that piques her interest and has her taking the covers off... _human survival._

Somehow, by the grace of something up above, she and the other twenty-three tributes are down in the training center, and everyone seems to be shrouded in a perpetual state of arguing. Amaris looks around the gathered tributes, some looking absolutely exhausted for it being 2:30 in the morning, before a death match in some infernal industrial contraption, everyone in some sort of night wear or dress wear. She finds it eye-opening how a couple of the tributes are shirtless - Aris needs to put his shirt back on; she never expected him to look _so _skinny - or in pretty much nothing but their literal underwear, but one thing is pretty much universal on all of their faces: anger, confusion, or a mix of both, a grotesque mystery child. Vanya is in the center of the group, Zola right next to him, and he's physically shaking, gripping onto the letter in his hands.

It is eerie, the training center at night. Amaris finds it odd how there's not a single Peacekeeper in sight, and they all managed to not wake up any of their mentors or escorts or any of the staff while making it down to the rendezvous point. All of the training dummies and weapons seem to have vanished out of sight except for a single rack on the wall, there being a couple swords, two bow and arrow sets, an axe, maul, a hammer, some sort of wire device, and a couple of knives, but the rack lies in the dark, the lights tuned down to a dim setting. It is as if everyone in the building had vanished except for them, and the more Amaris settles on the thought, the worse it gets for her. She alternates between the seemingly abandoned center and her fight with Ponty, but it is overturned by Zola stomping her foot on the ground and screaming at the top of her lungs.

"HEY! Everyone, shut up!" she screams, and that does the trick.

Everyone's voices goes out in little flickers, dying tributaries of protest petering out, every set of eyes now staring at the tributes in the center of the ring. Vanya stands up straighter, holding out the letter and turning around to face all of them. Amaris realizes, with a stark and definite shudder crawling down her back, that they're all arranged in a manner like you would during the bloodbath, waiting for the gong to ring. The male from Eleven swallows heavily, his eyes roaming everyone's faces, and when he reaches hers, she doesn't balk away. "I know you're all confused; I'm confused too."

"What are we doing down here?" Magdalena asks, tiredly, she practically leaning up against Cambric's shoulder, who does not seem entirely thrilled by the prospect.

"We're here-" Vanya starts to speak.

"I swear, if you invited all of us down here just to see you dance-" Jules begins to speak, but it seems as if he doesn't need to continue talking for both Satin and Aris give him withering glares. Amaris raises an eyebrow, wanting to chuckle. Perhaps she should've accepted that Career invitation after all, her tying with Jules would mean there could've been some competition between them in winning the leadership spot, since it seems as if he is doing an _amazing _job spectacularly messing up whatever laid plans have been set.

"That is not why we're here," Zola interrupts, her eyes bristling with electricity.

"In case you all forgot," speaks up twelve year-old Audhild Olthono, everyone turning to look at her, "We have an arena to get to in seven hours."

"She's right," Roanoke Arkus picks up the mantle. "If the Peacekeepers or Madam President or _anyone _sees we're not all here, you imagine the trouble we're going to be in when-"

"We're already being forced to kill each other," snorts Bloom Estrada. "How is there any other trouble worse than that?"

Amaris does not know the full extent of why they're down there in the training center, but she sees the way there's panic lacing on Vanya's face, a surprise to be sure, as she's always found him to be the one most calmly kept together. "Guys, seriously," she says, as there's about to be another rouse of shouting between District 12 and Aris, and Satin almost punching Zola in the jaw, but it is Amaris that gets all the attention on her. Ponty, who seemed to be about to get into words with Seth, Sophiana separating the two with both arms out, looks at her with a raised eyebrow. Amaris keeps her arms crossed, mouth level, face kept still. "I'm curious as to what Vanya has to say. We were all curious, weren't we? We all came down here, and if we weren't curious, we wouldn't have come," she nods at him. "Vanya, what is it?"

The ballet dancer's face is unreadable, but he licks his lips, reaffirming his posture. "I was instructed by someone called The Phoenix to collect ourselves down here, with our training uniforms, at 2:30 AM, and someone was going to come meet us and give us more instructions."

That seems to do the trick, with everyone clamoring in an uproar once more, but Amaris leans back against a column, rolling her eyes. Teenagers, children, every last one of them. Despite everyone's apprehensions, it's the truth, everyone listened to Vanya, although some are starting to move in their disgruntlement. She is currently holding her training uniform over her arm, because Ponty and Vanya's voices are too strong for her to reconsider. Aris's face is twisted in a scowl. "That sounds like a load of bullshit!"

"You can read the letter if you want," Zola takes it out of her district partner's hand, smiling with mockery, tilting her head to the side some.

"Who's to say we can even trust this Phoenix person?" asks Vivian Whiplash, the District 10 girl. Amaris has felt that fox's eyes linger all over her, perhaps hungrily - she is not so sure on that - but she also senses a judgment in the long stares over the lunch tables, judgement at who she is. At what she is. Amaris can judge right back, for she's seen the eyes of many murderers in her time with the Peacekeeper force. It is an identifiable spark, a tell-tale sign, and Vivian's body reeks of it. She's killed before. She sees the same look in Seth's eyes too, but his is darker, a smoldering fire being squashed out from above.

"We have any reason to not trust him?" voices Anahita Cascade.

"The fact that we've been roused out of sleep at 2:30 in the morning," Satin tells her, a extremely hard to miss glare emanating from her gaze, she crossing her arms.

Jason Lacey, the mayor's kid from District 9, takes a step towards the center of the circle, his brow pent together in pensive thought. "I've heard or read that name before..." he frowns. "What did President Rodney say after we completed the parade?" He looks around at the gathered tributes. "What did she say?"

"Someone potentially wishing to harm us," Mirek speaks up, having pushed Bloom behind him, since she keeps on looking over at Aris, fire in her eyes. Amaris is finding it hard to not look away from Ponty, who is looking at her, eyes searching for any sort of reaction. "You all remember that video we got shown at the reaping, right?"

Everyone nods, voicing assent of some sort. How could Amaris forget it? The lies being spoken out of that Avox's mouth, the damned lies of murder and betrayal and victors being blamed for someone else's wrongdoings... she wants to puke, and nearly does when her name is called out by the escort. "Rennie Davis," Ciphra's face lights up in remembrance.

"What if this is him that sent Vanya the letter?" Mirek looks back at his district partner, and Bloom's eyebrows rise in realization, mouth parting open. "What if this is what he was speaking of? A revolution against the president... against the Games... what if this is it? The building is empty, isn't it?" Hard to disagree with that fact. "The building must be empty because it is always assumed we stay in bed and wait to be waken up, for all the preparations are complete," he rubs a hand across his neck. "Because we have our trackers in, they know where we are," he shakes his head. "I think we're all pieces in something much bigger."

"Or it's just an easier way to kill us all," Rodric Oxford bites back, he closer to Cambric and Magdalena than Vivian, who has gravitated herself towards District 3. "To get us all in the same space before they blow our heads off."

"That's just paranoia," Cyril tells the male from Ten. Amaris isn't sure who _or _what to believe, she simply wants to go back to bed.

Vanya's face starts to lose some of its color, and Zola is trying to speak up again. Amaris's eyes wander over the group of tributes, a worrisome cinderblock beginning to settle down onto her shoulders. Something's off, something doesn't feel right, but she can't lay a finger on it. Over in their section, Tach Andon presses a hand onto Ciphra's shoulder, she turning around to look at him with a curious expression on her face. "Ciphra..." he whispers, but the whisper is loud enough for everyone to hear him. Tach swallows heavily, and Amaris notices that he has one hand digging into the left side of his throat, as if he's trying to claw something out.

"Tach, what is it?"

"I- I can't breathe-"

That rouses Cambric's attention, he leaving Magdalena's side, but he keeps himself at a bit of a distance. "Tach, what do you mean?"

"Something in my throat..." the kid coughs, and his hand resting on Ciphra's shoulder goes to the right side of his throat, fingers plaiting at the pale flesh.

Seth Cables shakes his head, lifting a hand up in the air dismissively. "I don't know about you guys, but this is horseshit. I'm gonna go back to bed, see you losers in the morning-"

Amaris leans off of the column some, staring directly at Tach. Is- is his neck _glowing? _He wheezes out another cough. "Ciphra, I'm not joking, I-"

Cambric is about to reach the male from Three, and Sophiana is calling out Seth's name. Zola looks over at Vanya with wide eyes, Bloom and Mirek talking together in hushed whispers, but Amaris feels all the hair on her arms stand up on end. Tach's fingers dig in deeper into his throat, and she is not kidding now when she says his skin is glowing a lustrous cardinal, as if something underneath is burning off excess energy, like nuclear fission. Ciphra opens her mouth, about to say something, when Amaris hears it. A hiss, as if someone left the teapot on a hot stove too long.

Tach clutches his throat once more, eyes widening, his chest rising and falling fast with him trying to catch his breath, eyes straining out of his head, he pulling on Ciphra's arm as if his life depends on it, she grimacing in pain out of his grip. "Ciphra, I don't feel good..."

Before anyone else can act or react, rather, the hiss reaches a fever pitch. Before all of their very eyes, Tach's throat _explodes. _A cavern opens out of the side of his neck, a torrent of blood and flesh splattering all over Ciphra, who is standing the closet near him. Copper droplets hang onto the side of the hole in his throat, and it is as if Tach hangs there on the wind, precariously floating in a limbo of life and death. Something lands on the floor of the training center with a clatter, it blinking slightly before turning off, steam rising from the device. _Tach's tracker._

Tach's body falls back onto the floor with a crash, and all Amaris can hear over the noise of everyone screaming in terror and panic is Ciphra the loudest of all, her body covered in cardinal, and the sound of the explosion rippling through the floor.

* * *

**_Satin Spinel: District 1 Female P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

The room is in a frenzy. Ciphra is standing over Tach's body in shock, mouth wide open, constantly screaming, Cambric pulling at her to try and get to her move away with the corpse. Anahita has burst into tears, and Satin is sure she's screaming as well, as is practically everyone, although some are simply looking on in shock, like Vivian or Rodric, Bloom's face bright and furious with rage. Satin isn't sure what to do with her hands, as her heart rate has accelerated rapidly, she trying to run over to Cyril, but he's trying to calm Maren down, who is now near him, head shaking back and forth. The girl from One cannot tear her eyes away from the body, at the grisly carnage spewing out of Tach's throat, the tracker sitting in its own pool of scarlet, sometimes blipping a light in the center of it, but nothing else.

A few of the tributes are simply frozen in disbelief, one of them being Vanya, his eyes wide, and he collapsing onto his knees. No one has tried to run away, everyone seemingly distracted in calming someone else down, or screaming their head off, as poor Sophiana Delarosa is on her hands and knees, scrambling away into a corner, Sage Dagoba trying to coax her out. Satin is about to take a step towards Cyril when she hears another explosive noise rock the tribute center, followed by a piercing scream from Anahita. Everyone's eyes whirl towards her as Jules Harper's body flops to the floor face forward, and when he lands, his jaw almost comes off, snapping in half like a book set down with its pages out. Something falls off onto the floor, and blipping the same color as the blood pool, his tracker. Another rouse of terrified yelling rips through the tributes, and some of those in shock begin to lose their minds too.

Her entire body is numb. What's going on? Who's doing this?

"Roanoke!" Sage cries out, and Satin sees, just in time - or not just in time - for the kid to fall back against the wall, and when he slowly slides down, there's a pulsing spot of cardinal left behind on the mat where his skull had been pressed up against it. The kid from Seven collapses onto the ground without uttering another word, his district partner rushing over to him, trying to shake him away.

"You sent us to the slaughterhouse!" Sophiana screams at Vanya. "We're all going to die! You killed us all!"

Cambric has reached Sage, trying to tug her away from the body when a girl's voice cries out amongst all the screaming. He turns around, eyes widening in terror as Magdalena Bertha's throat rips open from the outside inward, blood spilling out onto the floor as she falls face down onto the tile. He leaps away from Sage, almost rudely knocking her into Roanoke's dead body. "NO!" he roars, and Satin has never heard someone cry out with such pain in her life. Cambric reaches his district partner, shaking her shoulder, but she's dead.

"Audi!" Jason yells out, and she's never heard his voice go that high. Satin squeezes her eyes shut, but there's the telltale sign of something rupturing from inside the girl from Nine, and a heavy thud of her body falling onto the floor. Behind her closed eyes, all she can see is a ledger soaked in crimson, a burning black of bloodlust and terror. Five tributes just dropped dead, and she has no idea if she's next or not. If this is some sort of sick joke, Satin would like to be considered out of the sick joke. Maybe Sophiana is right. Maybe Vanya has indeed led them to the slaughterhouse to be killed.

She gags on the smell of blood beginning to fill the room, trying to block out everyone's voices. Each of the dead tributes has their respective district partner by their side. Cyril tries tugging Anahita off of Jules, but she snarls at him, before turning to her dead partner. Satin does not know what emotion is currently running through her heart. She is more than okay with sending a knife into his back, stabbing him in the shoulder blades to nick his spine, but seeing him dead on the floor to a machination not of his own making, her body twists with turmoil. Seemingly the only people truly not freaking out are Seth and Aris, the two standing rather calmly, yet silently in their respective spots. Seth has a look of displeasure on his face, and the wrinkling of his nose, but Aris is cold, _cold, _unflinching.

Amaris moves closer to Ponty from her spot in the room, while Vivian and Rodric silently look at each other, nodding. Satin is frozen, listening to Jason try and get Audhild to open her eyes, a brutal hole where the center of her clavicle would've been. Satin has to look away from Tach and Jules's bodies that are close together, Cambric and Ciphra looking wildly around at the carnage between them. In the center, still shaking and unable to speak, is Vanya, who has Zola tugging on his arm. All of this frozen movement, all of this tugging, yet _nothing. _Why does this feel different from a bloodbath? What makes this different from waiting for a gong to release them all to silver weapons to spill the same crimson coating the tile floor?

Satin has trained to be a lethal killer, it is in her blood, but this does not feel like killing to prolong chances of life.

She takes a step forward, another one to Cyril, who is balancing between getting Anahita to stop crying and Maren to stop trembling, when a guttural cry of pain emanates from Vanya's throat. The Career tries to hold her vision back at bay, but she looks regardless, just in time to see Zola's fingernails dig into her throat, Vanya shaking his head back and forth, babbling some incoherent mess of pleading and begging, before she wrenches her head back, but not by her own intuition, a cascade of blood spilling out of a hole in her throat. The girl falls back, but Vanya is still holding onto her right hand, getting pulled along with her. The two crash unceremoniously onto the floor, he screaming as her lifeforce gets all over his arms, Satin visibly trembling in shock, gasping lightly, falling back onto her hands. It looks as if _he's _bleeding too.

Tach Andon, Jules Harper, Roanoke Arkus, Magdalena Bertha, Audhild Olthono, and Zola Taonga...

Who's next?

It can be any of them! It didn't discriminate, whatever it is that's killing them.

Satin can hardly hear herself think over everyone's yelling and screaming, when all of a sudden the ground shakes beneath her. Anahita leaps away from Jules's body and into Cyril's arms, he catching her in surprise, holding her close to his body. She has no one to hold her, no one for her to look to. Mirek and Bloom are trying to pull Ciphra, Cambric, Jason, Vanya, and Sage closer to them, but it seems that everyone is too paralyzed to truly move. The ground shakes just but a little, and it seems to pass, but it does not mean that the terror in Satin's heart has passed. Will this be the end of them all? Will all of their trackers just explode and kill them all? Is this the idea of their Hunger Games... with a potential rebellion on the loose, Bonnie would rather kill them all?

She squeezes her eyes shut, scooting up against a column. "_You're fearless. Nothing can kill you. You're gorgeous. Everyone wants to be friends with you. Bonnie will spare you. You will live to see another day..." _

When she opens her eyes again, Vanya is trying to wipe the blood off of his arms with the other hand, but since he is covered in scarlet, he is only spreading it worse. No one else seems to be injured. Satin locks eyes with Cyril for a moment, and then another shake ripples through the center. She gets one last look at her own district partner - _traitor, _she thinks dismissively - and his haunting crystallized honey gaze, before the room goes dark, a powering-down sound overwhelming the cries of shock, fear, and pain, and blackness shrouds the remaining eighteen tributes.

Power's out.

* * *

**_Aris Lindel: District 2 Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

The backup generator has come on, the training center doused in a serene blueberry glow, these strips that poke out of the high risers moving into place before coming on. It is not nearly enough light as before, but it'll do the trick he supposes. Aris finds this absolutely exciting, to be honest, watching the tributes die and everyone freak out. This is the exact kind of entertainment, that if it were to be televised, the world would be celebrating, cheering on this invisible specter flipping switches and causing people's jaws to fly across the room. The moment the power goes out, that idiot girl from Five screams in terror, eliciting a groan from Seth. Aris looks down at his hands when a wave of blue washes over him, the initial feel of fright passing back into the blue of his bloodstream.

He would be lying if he said that he had not been afraid his turn would come, that he's angered some sort of being above and felt it personal to dole out punishment, and that he's on the shortlist. After Zola falls down to her death, with Vanya still slightly freaking out, the shadow of the grim reaper seems to pass over the training center, as if all would be normal again, unlike there being six bodies littering the floor. No one knows what to do, but it is Vivian Whiplash that takes over, clapping her hands together, the other seventeen heads looking at her. At her orders, and trying to not throw up due to the smell, Cyril, Cambric, Rodric, and Mirek pick up the bodies and lay them in a corner, covering them with tarps taken off of the gymnastics corner on the back wall.

Aris refuses to help, staying up against the wall, and occasionally he looks over at the weapons rack. A sword shines in the dark, it whispering to him. What is to stop him from picking the sword up and running through everyone else here? They're all distracted as it is, who would see it coming? He locks eyes with Bloom from across the room, and his blood flares again. She's kept the glare against him for the duration of the evening, but no matter how hard he withers his own stare, she strengthens hers back at him, a uncompromising war ending in stalemate with no victory. Why couldn't the invisible killer target her instead? For some reason it decides it best to target a twelve and a thirteen year-old, rather easy prey... Aris could outlive them, but instead his biggest competitors in Satin, Amaris, Cyril, Ponty, and Vivian are alive.

There is something golden rising out of the vermillion sea, however, as he looks at Jules's dead body, it being the second one of the six lying in the corner near the elevators. Aris will never forget the pure look of terror that crosses the Career's face, the split second before his life ends. He does not look away when the body lands on the floor, but he does wince when the jaw dislocates and hangs out the way it does, as that is rather gruesome. Anahita's scream is absorbed directly into his veins more than any other, for it is her, truly, that is the cause for all of his problems. However, there's way too many people in the room. If he is to go and grab the sword hanging on the rack, that is who it'll strike first. It means Cyril will probably be disposed of too, given that he is physically holding the brat _in his arms! _Why can't he be held like that? He'd love for someone to hold him like that.

Vivian wipes some sweat off of her forehead with the back of her hand, sighing, stepping back into the center of the room. Seth goes over to the elevators, pressing on the button that'd bring it down to their floor. Nothing happens, and he grunts in frustration, pushing the button another six or seven times. "Elevator's not working," he says.

"Is there no other way out?" Bloom asks, moving closer to him.

"There doesn't seem to be," Sage agrees.

Aris keeps his mouth shut, biting down on his tongue to stem the impulse of speaking out. If he remembers his history lessons correctly, and a bit of insight from what his parents had told him while they were redesigning the Nut, is that the District 2 training centers were designed specifically like the one here in the Capitol, with the president at the time giving away consent for such a design. There'd be no reason to object, as Two gave the second highest output of Peacekeepers, it is entirely admissible to have such a thing happen. There are three ways out of the training center, one of which being the elevator that is the most common, a second route specifically for the Gamemaker balcony where Constantine makes her way from the lobby floor to the training center floor via a staircase. And the third-

"How about where the Gamemakers sat?" Maren pipes up, and Aris's nose flares. Why does he have to hear her terrible and excruciating voice?

"Yeah, I see a staircase," Rodric points it out, moving into their line of sight.

Vivian frowns, taking a step closer to it, before shaking her head, frowning. "It's too high. None of us can reach it," she turns to look over at all the mats piled up on the wall. "There aren't enough mats to reach it either..." Aris smirks to himself at the brief, yet most definitely there, glimpse of fear that causes her lips to twitch, cheeks to bristle. "There's nowhere else?"

"Does that mean we're trapped in here?" Ciphra asks, fearfully. God, what a way that would be to die. Starvation.

"It's not like the power won't come back on," Ponty points out, looking at the girl from Three with a side-eye glance. The power is out. It's not like they're trapped in a cave-in. Aris thought that the people from Three were all supposed to be intelligent, and not quoting or asking dumb, stupid questions.

There is a third way out, Aris slinking away from the main group, bounding over to the fire building station. It is a station no one uses, for the concept of building fires in the Hunger Games is the most surefire way of being eliminated. Underneath one of the floorboards, if his assumptions are correct, is supposed to be a trapdoor, a secret way out of the building in case trying to reach the stairs takes too long, or the elevator is over run, in the case of a fire. He steps over to it, drowning out most of the conversation happening between the other tributes. Aris pushes back one of the carpets, looking up to see if anyone is paying him any mind. Why should he let anyone else know? Why would they deserve to hear his gospel? His eyes search the collected group of tributes, and then his gaze lands on _just _the right one.

"Amaris!" he shouts at her, from across the center. It gets everyone's attention, Maren holding her stare on him the longest, before they return to their arguing. Amaris raises an eyebrow, pointing at herself, before leeching off of the wall. As she passes by the current group of Cyril, Vivian, Bloom, Rodric, Sage, Seth, Maren, and Ciphra all caught up in an argument, the others were collected off by themselves or stuck talking to each other in random pairs. She reaches him, crossing her arms.

"What do you want?"

She's a perfect candidate. Aris knows she doesn't just step out on stage for her interview in a Peacekeeper uniform just for kicks; she's one of them, as she readily admits, and that garners a complete overhaul of support from the audience. He grins to himself, before guiding her to stare downwards at the spot on the floor. It is moreso a floor panel that can be moved, rather than a door, but it is a discolored shade of gray, a few singes of ash milling on the floor from past times of people trying and failing at fire building. Amaris gasps, sucking in a sharp inhale of breath.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"You're a Peacekeeper, right?" Amaris nods silently, he looking over her shoulder to make sure no one else is paying attention. "If Vanya happens to be right, and there's some war going on, that means there must be two sides: Madam President, and those fighting back."

"Yeah, you're right..." she nods again, but there's a look of confusion on her face; she's not following.

"Only someone on the Gamemaker team would have access to the trackers, causing them to go off," Aris's throat burns with excitement, a burn unlike what he'd figure an impeding death to trigger. "That means the president or the Head Gamemaker flipped them, and no others have gone off."

"That doesn't mean they were the only six," Amaris insists, gritting her teeth.

He almost slaps her. She's not listening to him. No one ever listens to him, no one ever takes his side, no one ever hears him out... but Aris figures Amaris to be more rational than the other idiots they're hounded with, so called 'trapped' in the basement with. "Regardless, I see that it gives us an opportunity."

"An opportunity for what?"

Aris grins, gleeful in the proposition; he's surprised he had thought of it himself, for he has never been the one to bring brilliancy to the table. "You're a Peacekeeper. I'm a Career from Two," he points to the wall, hoping that she gets where he's pointing to, beyond the scope of the center. "If something is really going on out there, and someone is killing us all, I want to go and plead our allegiance."

Amaris's eyes widen, and she places a hand up to cover her mouth, a shudder rippling through her. Aris keeps his smile on his face; he sees the way her eyes go alit with the prospect. Security. Safety. "Right now?" she whispers.

"Right now," and his eyes search the room. The others are all arguing or paying attention to themselves, some digging their hands into their necks, but Aris feels that no more of their trackers will be going off without some other telltale sign. Aris locks eyes with Rodric, the only other tribute who is not involved in one of the other two things. He narrows his glance at him, and begins walking over to them. A dark crevice in the Career's brain ignites into an inferno, and his grin curves into a wicked one. "And to prove our allegiance, let's take with us a prize..."

"What are you talking about-" she shakes her head in confusion, but by that point Rodric had already made his way over to the pair, arms crossed, eyebrows raised, face serious.

"You want to tell me what you're doing?" Rodric asks.

He's never liked him. Aris has never liked other aristocrats from other districts, as he can smell the fanciness on his body from a mile away, a fishiness to it, like caviar gone spoilt, burst black eggs crawling with maggots and baby spiders, the stench of foulness overriding all the other pleasant fragrances, like lavender and silk. Aris teeters back on his heels, holding his arms out from behind his back. He positions his gaze between Amaris and Rodric, keeping an eye on the others: Vivian is arguing with Ciphra over someone breaking their neck, and Anahita is telling Cyril that she could probably jump high enough to reach one of the banisters. Distracted. Distracted is a good thing.

"Nothing," Aris smirks, and then, as the crevice's inferno begins to burn with the ferocity of Venus's surface, he acts. "Just planning our escape."

"Your what-" the tribute from Ten croaks out in surprise, as Amaris furrows her eyebrows together.

Thinking fast, Aris thrusts his palm straight into Rodric's neck. The other tribute croaks out a cry of surprise, but the force in Aris's push is too strong, he falling back, but the Career grabs him by the left hand, tugging hard so he doesn't fall back. Rodric groans to himself, not loud enough for anyone else to hear him, and Aris then pushes the palm of his hand into Rodric's neck. He groans out again, head snapping up and back into place, and within seconds, the life in the male's eyes diminishes, and he falls slack in Aris's grip, knocked unconscious.

Amaris exhales shakily, fingers tensing. "Aris! What did you do?"

"Get the hatch," he whispers, pulling on Rodric's limp body. "Now! Before they all notice!"

She rushes over to the hatch, wrenching it open without much force. Aris grunts in surprise, Rodric is not as light as he looks, scooting backwards until his heel feels nothingness beneath him. Glancing back up again, the conversation continues, by the grace of the Madam President herself. Aris drops back into the shaft, a two foot ladder onto a hallway doused in the same bluish light as the center. He motions to Amaris, who hoists Rodric up by his feet, pushing him along the carpet until his body dangles into the hatch. Down below, Aris grabs his arms, and pulls, taking all of Rodric's body weight with him, he slipping out of Amaris's grip. He falls unceremoniously onto the ground with a clash, Amaris sneaking down the ladder shortly afterwards. She closes it slowly, ever so slowly, before the mechanisms lock into place.

Aris gets to his feet, wiping sweat off of his brow, his vision shrouded in darkness with a fringe of blueberry light hanging on the edges. Amaris exhales another shaky breath, looking down at Rodric, lax and limbs tangled up at their feet, as if he's sleeping. "You didn't kill him, right?"

"No," he shakes his head. "Just knocked him out. He'll come to in probably half an hour."

"What now?" she steps over the tribute's body, getting nearer to Aris. Their arms almost touch, electricity bristling between them.

"We go out into the beyond..." Aris smirks, turning to face the other direction. At the end of the hallway is a door, highlighted by the exit sign glowing a ferocious ruby above it, and if Aris is right - he's been correct so far, why should his knowledge fail him now? - the main city circle of the Capitol should be there, and just behind it, about a half-mile or so, the presidential palace, where President Rodney will be. He turns back to Amaris, who is stretching out her arms. "Are you ready? We go out there, we head to the president, and we say we'd like to fight alongside them, offering Rodric as..." Aris searches for the word, before landing on it. "Blackmail. In return for our service, we get to live when the rebellion is quashed. You can turn back."

Amaris does not look away, but he cannot read the emotion she's reflecting back at him. There are no tears, just the locking of her jaw, a heavy sigh, she squeezing her eyes tight, and opening them, her shoulders settling back. "No need to go back. I'm a Peacekeeper; I serve," and she goes to pick up Rodric's legs.

Aris smirks again, grabbing his arms, and as if the Oxford kid is some slab of meat being hung to bleed out, they hoist him up and off of the floor, his head swaying to the side lazily, back and forth, but no bodily reaction yet. Jules got what is coming to him, he losing his jaw and all. The others? Cyril, Maren, Anahita, Bloom... they'll get theirs too, if some signal doesn't explode their heads off first. He can picture it now, kneeling before the ethereal goddess, kissing her hand, getting a kiss on the forehead in return, and exalted, loved, _desired._

If there is a war going on outside, everyone should be afraid; they should be _very _afraid, as Aris Lindel takes no prisoners, and does not dole out mercy.

It is not in his DNA.

* * *

**_Maren Johnson: District 2 Female P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

This is pointless. All the squabbling going on, it is only serving as a distraction to the fact that six of them are dead, and the hours are drawing nearer and nearer... the power is not back on, and starvation potentially seems possible. She's seen blood before, she knows what it looks like, but nothing prepares her for seeing Tach's throat rupture, or Jules lose his jaw, or watch Vanya get covered in a stream of Zola's life force... she is incapable of stopping the scream that rips from her throat, or the tears that fall down her cheeks as other bodies fall to the floor. Luckily, the reactions are reciprocated by nearly everyone in the room, but she'll hear their screams of death and the sound of their bodies exploding into pieces for the rest of her life, for however long she shall live.

She shakes her head in frustration at Anahita taking a running start towards the upper level, the area where Constantine Fallorne would sit for their training sessions, but the girl misses it by a country mile, the level being about fifteen feet up, and Anahita only making it about half a foot. The little girl tumbles into a rather well executed roll, but she skids into one of the placemats with a groan. Vivian paces back and forth, biting on the cuticles of her thumbs, the pale skin turned a ferocious scarlet and carnation pink as she chews away, murmuring to herself slightly. The Career tries to not look over at the six bodies lying underneath the tarps, or the blood stains from where their demises had taken place. She has no idea how Ciphra, Anahita, Sage, Cambric, Jason, and Vanya are taking it, or perhaps _not taking it, _for Jason and Vanya haven't spoken a single word, standing rather frozen and in shock, but she doesn't blame them.

"Guys, we have to do something," Sage speaks up, running a hand through her auburn hair, tossing the braid back and forth.

"I just don't want to die..." Sophiana whispers to herself, fingers digging into her cheeks every so often. Maren asks Seth what she's doing, as it is starting to look uncanny, as if she's peeling her face of, and he remarks that she's making sure she's whole, that she isn't dead. There's a hint of disdain in his voice, and Seth is unable to keep eye contact with her or Sophiana as he looks away, going back over by the elevator, close and near the bodies. She wants to yell at him, to scream at him and tell him to leave them alone, but it is not like he's hurting anyone other than himself if he were to stare at them; it's not like any of them can be affected by another force again.

"We could try busting a hole in the wall," Cyril suggests. He points over to the weapons rack. "We have weapons at our disposal. A hammer, an axe, a sword..." and he rubs the back of his neck. "They might damage the weapons, but in case the power doesn't come back on and we're stuck down here-"

"We won't be stuck down here," Satin interrupts him, but without all of her panache, her voice trembling and her throat quaking as she speaks. Whatever semblance of composure held in the girl from One is gone, and there's a wild look in her eyes, she alternating between picking out her fingernails or playing with her. Everyone has switched into their training uniforms, Maren starting to get cold, but moreso as Vivian insists they all do. "Someone will come for us..." Satin continues, but she looks over at Vanya with uncertainty in her eyes. "Right, Vanya?"

He doesn't respond, the ballet dancer looking down at his hand. Maren raises an eyebrow, leaning forward some to see it better. It's a ring, a golden ring, and inscribed across the band, a woven ivy leaf, popping out with a bit of sharp amaranthine at the tips where the leaves meet, Vanya rolling the ring back and forth in his left hand between his middle finger and thumb. Ponty clears his throat, "Vanya," he says, and the ballet dancer looks up.

"Sure... I suppose..." he says, voice trailing off, and he goes back to staring at the ring.

Maren goes to say something when a faint noise causes her ears to prick up, almost like a rabbit's. She frowns, but it seems she might not be the only person hearing whatever it is, as Cambric picks up on it too, standing up from his sitting position over by the wall where Anahita had crashed into. The Career walks over to the far right side, closer to the electronic plant edibility test, looking upward at the miniscule spot where a few windows rest, the dark night spilling in from above. A few minor pops and cracks become evident to her ears, Maren gasping, stepping away from the wall. She is not the most familiar to the noise, but it is not foreign to her in the slightest either, a noise that marks the death of a rebelling traitor, or a murderer of a few academy cadets when a silver bullet embeds into their brain.

"Do- do you hear that?" Cambric asks, and this now has everyone's attention turned to the sound of the noise.

Maren swallows heavily. "Y- yeah..."

"It sounds like gunfire," Vivian points out, and then her eyes shoot straight to Vanya. "Vanya, did that letter mention anything about-"

"Hey, wait a minute..." Sage interrupts her, stepping into the center of the group, looking around, a frown on her face, eyes searching. "Where's Amaris and Aris?"

That piques her attention, and she looks around the room for her ever annoying and awful district partner. Hearing his monologue that had rested on the near point of insanity is a high point of her week, to be honest, if not mildly terrifying, for the look on his face of having been caught, it is priceless and she wouldn't change it for the world. He's nowhere to be found, and according to Sage, neither is Amaris. Maren does a headcount, counting _fifteen..._ which means someone else is-

"Rodric?" Vivian calls out her district partner's name, swirling around in a circle. It would be rather comical, Maren supposes, but she finds nothing humorous in the situation and the moment in time. No response.

"Did they just-" she goes to say, but Maren never gets to finish the statement.

Before she can utter another word, the far right wall of the training center explodes. There's a deafening roar, her ears popping, a cinderblock soaring through the air, coming to a crash in front of them. They all shout and exclaim expressions of fright and surprise, a billow of smoke and sulfur and fire lacing the hole that had been the far right wall. Maren's eyes widen when two figures burst through the veil of smoke, and she almost forgets how to breathe, a sharp stabbing pain hitting her gut.

If her reaction is visceral, it doesn't compare to Cyril and Satin's. "Lance?" Cyril yells out.

"Valencia?" Satin is right behind him in astonishment, the two slinking together.

Looking much worse for wear than the others, the two victors from District 1 reach the center of the room, some sort of metallic device clenched in Lance Viel's hands, his thumb resting on a button atop it. Both of their faces are covered in soot, ash spread across their foreheads. Lance's normally brown hair is nearly as dark as Valencia's, her long onyx locks bundled in a strange mess, the two out of breath. Neither one of them respond to Cyril or Satin's outbursts, Lance looking over at the group of tributes, the fifteen of them huddling together. Maren is trying to process the fact that there is a hole in the training center, spilling in light and the smell of smoke, and the very new evident sound of _gunfire _to the mix, but she no longer has time to dwell on anything, more rather people simply being dragged along to the next moment in her life.

"Seriously, what the _fuck_ is happening right now?" Anahita bursts out, a rather strong word for someone so young, but no one reprimands her.

Maren can see Lance counting out numbers by the way his lips move. "Fifteen..." he lands on, and his brow furrows in confusion. "Fifteen? Where- where are the others? There should be twenty-four..." his voice trails off.

"Dead," Vivian points behind them, the two victors following her line of sight, the six pairs of shoes poking out from the tarp laid out over them. "Vanya received a letter from someone named The Phoenix and... we were all down here and Tach's throat all of a sudden exploded and-" the girl begins to run out of breath, she expelling a shaky sigh, leaning down to place her hands on her knees.

"Then she wasn't joking," Valencia says lowly, she bulking her tongue on the side of her mouth.

"But that was six," Lance blinks, frowning. "Where- where are the other three-"

"They vanished," Sage says. "Amaris, Aris, and Rodric, we saw them here for a moment and then gone the next."

"Amaris?" the male victor repeats her name, and Sage nods. "The Peacekeeper?" He curses under his breath at the second affirmation. "She probably went to Bonnie's side..."

"What happened? What's going on-" Cyril tries to interrupt, Valencia bridging the gap between them all.

"Do you trust me?" she asks him, looking into the tribute's eyes, her face serious. "Do you trust Lance and I?" Both he and Satin nod without saying a word.

Maren has no idea what's going on. She generally never has an idea, but right now, she's losing her mind and it is not happening nicely. Why couldn't she be back home with her mother and father? If she had refused Vanya's call of getting out of bed, in which Aris oddly agrees with, no argument passing from his lips, perhaps none of this would have happened. Perhaps all of this is a dream and if she pinches her arm hard enough she'll wake up, all the way back home, and that these last nine months have been a fever dream of training and set expectations, and her mother is not withering away with cancer and-

She has gotten too far ahead of herself, trying to lapse back into the conversation.

"We don't have any time to explain, but we need all of you to come with us," Valencia says.

"Where?" Sophiana asks, still trembling. Maren tries to not lock eyes with the girl, she still pulling on her face.

Valencia goes to reply, but she's overridden by someone else, Maren's body shaking with a thunderous shock to her nervous system. "YOU!" Seth roars, and out of the corner of her vision, she sees the male from Five race forward from the back of the room, she not even noticing him or that he hadn't been by them. There's something silver in his right hand, jagged and pointed as he rushes past Cyril, knocking Sophiana out of the way. Valencia backs up, almost as if slow motion, a burning look of hatred in Seth's eyes, as he vaults for her, a knife slicing downwards through the air.

Cambric leaps forward, tackling Seth to the ground, Jason shouting in surprise as the blade scatters off into the distance. Half of them stand in the pure thaw of surprise and shock at what the hell just happened, Maren's body vibrating with pure adrenaline. Seth snarls, spit flying from his mouth and onto the tile as Ponty, Cyril, and Sage all topple onto him, Cambric gripping onto Seth's hands.

"Seth, what the hell?" Cyril shouts at him.

"Get off me!" he growls, struggling underneath their weight.

Did- did Seth Cables just try killing Valencia? Why? Maren's head is swimming with uncertainty and confusion, but apparently she has more to see, more to suffer, as Vivian is starting to say something under the thaw of excitement and buzz floating around the center. Maren sees it too, but cannot hear what is being said over the roar of blood in her ears. A legion of white on the horizon, but the wave is coming at them strong and fast, and speckled throughout, blobs of midnight, formed structures that seem to take malicious forms in the murkiness.

"Guys, we've got company-" Vivian shouts, when four figures from the legion of white - _Peacekeepers, _Maren thinks, her mouth drying up instantaneously, _coming to kill the survivors _\- break off and crouch onto their knees, just outside of the entrance that Lance and Valencia stepped into, her mind connects two and two together to make four.

Lance follows the line of sight, breaking his attention away from the struggle happening by his feet. "GET DOWN!" he roars, and then the world ignites in a sulfurous blaze.

Seth is wrenched to his feet just in time for Cambric and Sage to knock him out of the way, the three falling suit and diving to the left, as Mirek pushes Bloom out of the way, before diving to the right. Bloom hits Vanya, still pretty much lost to the surrounding environment, the two falling over together as Valencia leaps over to them, pulling something out of a clip strapped to her waist. Vivian grabs Maren's hand, wrenching her to the ground as a rocket from an RPG soars above their heads, her face feeling the warmth of the rocket as it slams into the far left wall, another explosion of cinderblock and ash creating a gaping hole in the wall and the spot directly underneath it, a sinkhole forming and cracking underneath the weight.

Anahita is frozen in place as well, staring at the four Peacekeepers prepared to murder them as the second artillery firer takes his shot. Cyril rushes at her, picking her up in his arms, the second RPG soaring over his head and into the ceiling. Ponty seizes Jason by the waist, diving in the same direction as Vivian had taken Maren, they collapsing onto the cold floor. Maren's jaw hurts from the collision, she trying to speak, but no words can come out. Satin goes to hide behind a column, and Mirek is trying to rush at Sophiana, who is doing a terrible job at hiding, when the fourth rocket is fired, causing Mirek to rush to a halt. Ciphra, covering her ears, dives behind the same pile of dummies that Vanya and Bloom scooted over to, mouth open in a scream, but it feels like everyone's screaming. Maren's head rattles with the booming noises, a cacophony of sound overwhelming the chamber.

Lance is screaming something, something unintelligible, where Valencia is pulling at Bloom and Vanya to get to their feet. Sage and Cambric pick Seth up, Cambric keeping his grip tight, and the five of them race towards one of the open holes in the wall from one of the missed rockets. The male victor is about to head out into the night when he picks up Ciphra, as if she is a ragdoll, the girl limp in his arms. Vivian's hands are picking at the back of Maren's shirt, forcing her to her feet, but her body is not cooperating. The Peacekeepers reload their RPG's, stepping through the hole this time, and it is Cyril's voice that causes Maren to react.

A streak of fire burns the air as it aims for the column that Satin is hiding behind. Cyril screams his district partner's name again, and she screams his, before the entire column crumbles under the bombardment, Satin racing away to another hole in the wall, but a different one than where the victors had run out of. Maren sees Mirek and Sophiana hiding behind other columns, the boy from Twelve trying to reach the other girl, she freaking out and screaming, non-stop screaming, when Ponty leaps out from his spot, grabbing Cyril and wrenching him back. Another two RPGs soar through the sky, hitting another two columns, and the entire building _groans. _

Maren gasps, the entire floor above them starting to crack, fractures appearing in the ceiling. They're going to bring down the whole tribute center! Vivian is still pulling at her shirt, but she's focused on Mirek and Sophiana trying to reach other as the Peacekeepers fire another two shots. Another two columns are blasted away, Sophiana scattering out another exit, and Mirek curses, looking over at Maren and the rest of them, but the distance is too far... he'll never make it. With an affirming nod, he rushed over to a fourth hole in the wall, one on the east side, where the gunshots had been heard from, escaping into the night, but the others were backing into a corner.

Another column is blown away, and several pairs of hands snag onto Maren's back, as a boulder crashes into where she had been recently standing. She squeezes her eyes shut, waiting for the booms to end, but they never end, as the rest of the training center, the fourteen floors above them, starts to crack, fractures appearing in the room. Is she screaming? Or is it the sound of a heavenly army destroying everything?

The ceiling gives way, the last six tributes remaining in the tribute center huddled in a corner by the weapons rack, the one from where Seth would've stolen the knife from, and then Maren's vision goes black.

* * *

**_Vivian Whiplash: District 10 Female P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

She should've stayed in bed. Rather yet, she should've let the Peacekeeper all the way back home in Ten shoot her after she tries breaking out of his grip to say goodbye to Tamerin, longing for that last kiss. Vivian lifts her head and rests it against the one spot of the wall that has not been blown to shit. She can hardly more than a few inches in front of her face clearly, there being a few cracks of light peering out through the collapsed wall of rubble that separates them from the Peacekeepers. There's nothing; no more explosions, no more talking, and no more screaming: just the shaky breaths of she and five other tributes. Vivian has no idea what just happened, but she cannot stop her hands from shaking, especially as she sees the six bodies lying under the tarps - _You'll remember their names, dammit, _Vivian hisses to herself in her head, _they're Tach Andon, Jules Harper, Roanoke Arkus, Magdalena Bertha, Audhild Olthono, Zola Taonga... and they're dead _\- are some of the first things in the room to be crushed by the collapsed ceiling, and the thirteen floors that follow suit.

Vivian removes herself from the wall, sighing, rubbing her face. She has not been able to stop sweating, her face stinging as new droplets slide down to take the places of the one freshly wiped away. Her throat is dry, coughing on the spreading dust cloud, they stuck in no more than a five by five space, the only unbroken part of the center above them, but Vivian is not putting her faith in that holding up for much longer. She peers into the darkness, four sets of eyes glooming back at her, piercing stares of cerulean, emerald, and mahogany, but all of them gone and confused, terrified and out of sorts. Cyril is trying to dig and claw his way through the rock bed, his grunts and growls of frustration filling the space. It is commendable, she'll give him that, but it is futile. There's nowhere for them to go, that way. There is one way, the one way she had been trying to grab Maren and thrust her towards, as Maren Johnson is the closest person next to her.

"What do we do now?" Jason asks, shakily, his lanky frame staunch when crouched next to tiny little Anahita.

"I can't believe what just happened..." Ponty exhales, his voice the least shaky of them all.

Cyril slams his foot against one of the boulders, and when he turns around to face them, his cheeks are stained in crystal rivers, tears falling free with a pathetic _pitter pat, pitter pat_ beneath his shoes. "It's no use. I can't get one of them loose."

"I saw Satin run out an exit," Maren pipes up, but her voice is barely above a whisper over in her tiny spot. "She got out, Cyril."

"But what about-"

"There's no way the Peacekeepers didn't just get crushed by the ceiling coming apart," Vivian finds herself saying, righting herself with as much room as she can afford herself. "The entire center just collapsed. Whoever sent them, they were on a suicide mission to kill the rest of us, and they didn't succeed."

Jason hugs his knees to his chest. "I don't want to move on. I want to stay here and not move an inch," and his voice breaks. "She died. Audi just _died._ She didn't hurt anybody, yet she's dead..."

"Cyril, I'm scared," Anahita admits to him, scooting closer to the Career, resting her head against his shoulder.

"I'm scared too, kid."

"And that's okay?"

"It's perfectly okay."

Vivian finds it heartwarming, sure, but there is no way she is going to sit here and rot. She scoots over to the location she had been gunning for, the one someone wouldn't have thought to follow. "Guys, we can't stay here and not move. We're not cowards, and I don't want something else to kill us, as a lack of oxygen just might do it," Five gazes snap up to look at her. "The first rocket they fired hit a wall and caused the floor to crack open as well, and I think it leads to a maintenance tunnel, and maintenance tunnels must have a beginning and an end." She's right, as she's staring at it, a dimly lit hallway surrounded by stark walls, the chill of a fresh winter hanging down below, but it is the only path offered to them. "I'm going to go down there."

"And what about after that?" Ponty asks.

She shakes her head in dissent. "I'm not sure. If there really is a war going on outside, maybe we should try and join up with Valencia, Lance, and the others, but I don't know where they are."

"I want to go home," Maren pipes up, but as she says it, she gets to her feet, shaking slightly.

"We can't go home," Jason says, his voice hollow, cracked, broken. He locks eyes with Vivian. "The Capitol tried killing all of us, and they killed Audi. If you're going to go and fight them, I want to come too."

Someone like Jason, Vivian realizes, is someone she'd be upset with, the idea of him having money and the means to share and help people, but never lifting a finger, but she hears the shakiness in his voice, the fear that rides it... she cannot help but be impressed by his prowess. She also thought Ponty would be rather despicable, but she garners a sense of respect for him too, in a way, but it does not settle easily in her throat. Illuminated slightly by one of the cracks appearing through the wall of debris, the glinting silver of the weapons rack stands out to her, the familiar moonlit silver of the blades popping to her eyes. She walks over, plucking the bow and quiver off of it, shouldering the quiver, holding the bow in her hand, before staring back at the other five tributes.

Anahita gets up first, wiping at her runny nose, two knives still in their sheaths being pocketed by her side. Cyril takes a sword, swinging it to himself in the tiny space afforded to him, before grinning widely. Ponty searches for something, but doesn't say what, before settling on some sort of bludgeoning-like weapon, like a maul of sorts. Maren's fingers wrap around the hilt of an axe, but it requires a lot of her strength to lift it off of the rack. Jason picks out a sword skinnier than Cyril's, by a rather wide margin, put takes another knife as well.

Vivian looks at the group standing in front of her, all eyes on her. She didn't mean to take center stage, she really didn't, but Vivian Whiplash is not going to die in the Capitol if there is no Hunger Games being forced upon them.

"You don't have to follow me..."

"But we want to," Cyril says, and there's an edge to his voice, a sharp bitterness that is mixed in with positivity, a faint praise. "It's like you said, that or nothing."

She nods, sighing deeply. Vivian hopes that Rodric is alive, wherever he is, and that he knows what to do if someone were to come charging at him, shooting some sort of machine at him. Three hours ago, she calls herself a monster, for doing what she's needed to do to survive... she might need to continue the monster route for a little while longer, lives on the line, people putting their faith and trust in _her, _but she is not going to shy away from the challenge.

Taking another sigh, an extremely deep breath that almost plucks all of the remaining oxygen out of their haven, Vivian takes the plunge, jumping into the service tunnel.

* * *

**24th: Tach Andon, 16, District 3 Male. Killed by the Kill Switch. Created by Audmirable. So, Audmirable, I don't think you didn't see this coming, given Valencia won last time and she's a main character in this, our confident scientist, neurotic, funny man was doomed from the start. I really did enjoy writing him however, and he played greatly off of Ciphra, but his time to survive is no more.**

**23rd: Jules Harper, 17, District 4 Male. Killed by the Kill Switch. Created by DMonkey1607. Okay, so to say Jules was disliked or hated is putting it at as an understatement. I actually enjoyed writing him, as although his form was extremely small, he was a tribute designed to rock the boat and he _rocked the boat _so damn well. Also, it allowed me to creatively think of a way to kill him... but it just goes to show that it doesn't matter if you're a Career, high scorer or not, the war can still kill you.**

**22nd: Roanoke Arkus, 13, District 7 Male. Killed by the Kill Switch. Created by Guesttwelve. This hurt, I'll just say that. The moment I received Roanoke I knew I wanted to use him, as there was so much in him that I got to unpack over these last thirteen chapters since his introduction, but sometimes there are tributes who are sacrificed for the will and usage of another, and he was one of those unlucky ones to fall victim.**

**21st: Magdalena Bertha, 18, District 8 Female. Killed by the Kill Switch. Created by Tiger outsider. She was someone who most definitely grew on me, but like Roanoke, was the only submission I accepted for the slot. In a regular Games, she could've potentially been a contender, and her realistic ways on the world were amazing and fun to write, but alas, the Kill Switch was hungry.**

**20th: Audhild Olthono, 12, District 9 Female. Killed by the Kill Switch. Created by 66asmvr. This little girl here, she was absolutely a delight to write. I had a very hard time making this decision of having her die here, for being such a young age with such wizened experience, but what I had and what I got to do with her was lovely too; it's a shame things have turned out the way they have.**

**19th: Zola Taonga, 17, District 11 Female. Killed by the Kill Switch. Created by Apple1230. This was painful, writing her last moments, and I realized with her interview POV how badly I was going to miss her, and goodness I miss her already. She was a delight, a wonderful character to bounce off of with Vanya, and a lot of you became endeared towards her as well. Apple, I'm sorry, but it needed to be done, and it has killed me so.**

* * *

_**Tribute List (Boy - Girl)**_

District 1: **Cyril Barther **[_Submitted by thorne98_] / **Satin Spinel **[_Submitted by_ _Mistycharming_]

District 2: **Aris Lindel **[_Submitted by grimbutnotalways_] / **Maren Johnson **[_Submitted by Crashed Ice24_]

District 3: **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 4: **Anahita Cascade** [_Submitted by Reader Castellan_]

District 5:** Seth Cables** [_Submitted by Nemris_] / **Sophiana Delarosa **[_Submitted by Santiago Poncini20_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara **[_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 7: **Sage Dagoba **[_Submitted by AlexFalTon_]

District 8: **Cambric Vogel **[_Submitted by dyloccupy_]

District 9: **Jason Lacey **[_Submitted by ilvidis_]

District 10: **Rodric Oxford **[_Submitted by Alexcias_] / **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

District 11: **Vanya Vasiliev **[_Submitted by TheMayflyProject_]

District 12: **Mirek Bosco **[_Submitted by curiousclove_] / **Bloom Estrada **[_Submitted by LordShiro_]

...

**_Capitol Cast of__ Characters_**

_President of Panem:_ **Bonnie Rodney**_  
_

_Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: _**Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies: _**Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games: _**Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: _**Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: _**Hale Cornerstone**

_Victor of the 77th Hunger Games: _**Hector Merviere**

_Victor of the 84th Hunger Games: _**Kevia Janelle**

_Head Gamemaker: _**Constantine Fallorne**

_Head Peacekeeper: _**Lazarus Pietro**

* * *

***deep breath* Okay, so I know you're all screaming at me and wondering what the hell, but let me catch my own breath first. I absolutely gotta stop setting minimums for me cause I thought that this would barely breach 10k, barely lol. Although I had Bonnie flip the kill switches at randomly, I ultimately decided on the six that passed purely out of whether or not I could use them for the particular storyline I had in mind. I had a lot going on in my head, a lot of chaotic thought as I needed to branch all eighteen tributes into four distinctive groups: The Tigress Company, The Phoenix Company, The Rodney Administration, and the Loners, and I think they all speak for themselves. This is just the beginning of all the crap I have planned over the next fourteen chapters, so strap yourselves in.**

**In case you are looking out for SYOTS to submit to, one that has just come up to my attention is _Heir _by Reign of Winter, and they seem to be off to a great start without any submissions, but they've reached out for me to submit, in which I am, so head on over! If you've made it this far through my exhausting AN's, I want to say thank you, and again, apologies about the delays: college sucks. It would mean a great deal to me if you reviewed, for I would love to hear your thoughts on the chaos that is unfolding. I shall see you by my next due date, March 3rd, with Chapter #25: The Underground Defense, which will have Capitol character POVs, but it does not mean there will not be tributes, so do stay tuned. I love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	25. Underground Defense (Phoenix III)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #25: Underground Defense. This is where things, as if they haven't already, get kicked to eleven, cause ladies and gents... we're fully in the rebellion now. Rennie has pulled his hand, Bonnie flipped the kill switch, six tributes are dead (Tach, Jules, Roanoke, Magdalena, Audhild, and Zola), and the tributes have been scattered into four groups, of which I keep track of for you guys in case you need it. Likewise I did in Slaughter, I am alternating chapters back and forth of tribute POVs and Capitol POVs (the tributes will always have equal or more POVs in their respective chapters) but each one pushes the plot along, so I suggest you stay in tune to all of it. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #25: Underground Defense.**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, shine a light in the darkness so we may know where we are going, and so we do not become lost members of the herd._

**_Rennie Davis: The Phoenix P.O.V_**

* * *

It is way too late for this, but it needs to be done. It is way too late for him to concentrate, but he must. The sounds of the world drowning in a sea of chaos boom overhead, and the tinnitus in his ears has yet to fully fizzle out, but Rennie Davis keeps his head straight, eyes focused, and he does not flinch from the violence. A million and one thoughts rush inside his head as he leaps forward, the bomb wrenching free and flying into the air. He hears Pollux screaming at him, but he's not sure why... isn't this what he wanted? Isn't this what everyone wanted? An end to it all? Destruction? It is what needs to be done, to bring down the Panemian hierarchy, to end the Hunger Games... it will not be done with them all holding hands and singing kumbaya.

He does not tell anyone besides Criston and Lance what he is planning to do, but he realizes halfway through his throw, with all of the mass confusion going on at once that this is not a great idea, keeping people in the dark. Someone's hands - they must be Pollux's - were pulling at him after the first detonation, the trigger in his hands weighing him down. Bonnie's electrically bright blonde hair is there one second, gone the next, but it looks like she escapes the collapsing roof unharmed, with Lazarus pulling her back, some other Peacekeeper holding onto Constantine and ripping her away from the next carnal onslaught of mortar and brick. Hale, Hector, and Kevia dive out of the way, their hands luckily free and not chained together, collapsing onto Lance and Valencia unceremoniously, and Rennie sees Lance wrap his arms around Kevia in a tight hug, while Valencia goes to wipe away the blood dripping out of the corner of Hector's mouth.

The windows have shattered from the shockwave of the explosion, and there is a minimal amount of shouting that can be heard on the other side, a mix of anger and coughing, and he can make out a sturdy male voice - Lazarus giving orders, and Bonnie freaking out, all of this freaking out - but that means there's only so much time to act. They're on the second story. Rennie looks out of the mansion, and they're just above the garden. If he makes the right trajectory, he should land onto a bush, preferably not a rose bush. He looks back at his collection of victors plus Pollux, who are trying to catch their bearings together, and makes a leap out of the window. Criston's call of his name warps on the wind through the ringing in his ears, the roar of his own heart, but Rennie has landed into the bush by now. Kevia is helped down by Lance, Criston and Valencia jump together, and Hector helps Hale down first before Pollux takes a running head start. Rennie catches him, just barely, from busting his ass on the concrete. They're all alive. _Good. _

Valencia seems to be the calmest, her shoulders rising and falling, but Rennie doesn't have time to type out orders on his tablet. Pollux tells she and Lance to go get the tributes, in which Kevia hotly protests that it should be her job, but the two of them are already gone. Bonnie will be ushered to safety, as will Constantine, and Lazarus will go with them to protect them and the baby - Rennie's heart skips a beat. He forgot about the child. Did- did he just kill a month old baby? - but there'll be Peacekeepers flooding for them very soon. That had been a half hour ago, now, at this point, with Rennie leading everyone down into the sewers, a path he has taken a hundred times now at this point, slipping back and forth between the dark and light worlds, the truthful and negative worlds.

The lights above pass over his face in thin strips of lucent yellow, stingy strips of flecked gold and pasty white, flickering somewhat. If his orders are to have been followed, everything should be in motion. Pollux is calling out to him, but Rennie pushes onward, onward, _onward. _Lance and Valencia will be behind them shortly, given a ten minute run to the training center from the mansion, and then a twenty minute journey with no stops to their base... plus twenty-four scared out of their mind tributes. Why did Pollux get so upset about the one-fourth? Rennie has an idea, an inkling of something about the trackers going in early due to there being fear of him doing something. "_This something for you Bonnie?" _Rennie thinks smartly to himself.

The maintenance tunnel down to the old Peacekeeper station shakes slightly every few minutes. Rennie knows what he's done, by detonating that bomb. Chaos will take place, people who know of his mission rising out of their smoldering hideouts and apartments, and unleashing hell on those who won't stand down. Rennie smiles to himself at the idea of the Gamemakers Square destroyed, that beautiful fountain split open with the blood of Bonnie's defenders, and the screams that rise from the air... this city, this country, its taken everything from him, and the woman leading it has stolen a future from him too. She'll pay. They'll all pay, and he's going to smile when Bonnie chokes on her own blood, throat slit open, and he'll crush her head like God told Adam to strike the serpent beneath his boot heel. Everyone else will understand. They'll learn, they'll know what he's done is right in terms of the greater good.

Anything to win.

Anything to survive.

The tunnel opens up into a more expansive sector, the home front. Rennie turns around, facing the collected group of Pollux, Criston, Kevia, Hector, and Hale. Others have already arrived, escorts, stylists, Capitol citizens, Peacekeepers influenced by Lance, Pollux, and his own ads... it is not just a group of eleven, it is thousands fighting against thousands. Pollux stops in front of him, wiping at the back of his head.

"You're insane, Rennie," he whispers, but loud enough for everyone to hear him. "You're insane." However, in the panic of the interviewer's voice, there's a lightness to it, and a small smile that creeps up even where it is not allowed.

_I think we'll need some insanity._

"Are they all dead?" Kevia asks, breathlessly, holding Hale by the side, Criston gripping onto Hector, who looks a little bit woozy. "Did Bonnie and them get crushed by the bomb?"

The Avox shakes his head in dissent. _No. If they did, I know I'd feel it. They're alive, and that means we've got work to do._

"What does that entail, exactly?" Hector pipes up, his voice shaking. Rennie's heart goes out to the pair standing in front of him, the Merviere family united by blood. They've been through so much in such a short period of time.

_War, Hector. _Rennie cannot resist a smile. _War. _

He turns away from the group, going to the command table in the center of the room. The command center is a little bit smaller than the main Gamemakers room in the Gamemaker Center, modeled to be an exact replica, as this room had been built before the Center had been even an idea in the first president's head. Rennie crosses over to it, and Criston matches him step for step, the Avox typing in a code on the center console that sticks out from the middle of the table. A low whirring noise fills the room, and within a few seconds, the table sparks to life, a blue holographic projection of the Capitol popping into existence. There's a collective gasp that comes from behind him, he smirking to himself. There's so much more.

Criston taps a sequence of dots out on the display frame next to the keypad, and a wire down on the floor begins to glow a serene and bright amber color, before the wire syncs up to the twelve display monitors on the far wall. Live feeds of the city, a monitor on the oxygen levels of the underground base, and next to it, which must've been an added feature, a counter of twenty-four flashing orbs. Rennie can only assume those to be the trackers of the tributes, added who knows when - Lewlyn would know, if she were alive, he thinks bitterly to himself. She had engorged herself on that sort of data and history. - but he frowns at the sight, seeing that there were eighteen circles glowing, not twenty-four from just a few days before.

"The circles..." Hale says with a gasp, stepping up to the monitors.

"She meant it," Pollux says gravely. "She killed six of the tributes then, flipping some sort of switch with the trackers."

"Have- have they always been able to do that?" An insurmountable look of loss replaces the more tepid gaze in Hector's eyes, he leaning up against the wall. "Pollux?"

The interviewer shakes his head, his dark mop of black hair entrenched by a wave of pale pulsar light, he scratching at his forehead. "I'm not so sure. I wasn't given all the specifics," he shudders, closing his eyes. "Bonnie told me she wanted to break a glass ceiling, but I didn't know what that meant fully. Constantine must've given her the idea."

"I'm gonna kill her-" Criston hisses through clenched teeth.

"Get in line, buster, " Kevia retorts.

Rennie shakes his head, frowning. There can't be any squabbling among them. The Phoenix rebellion will not last if everyone is not on a united front together, there's simply no way he can beat them all. He turns around to face them, hands resting on the edge of the display table. What he has in mind could simply take a day, or it could take nine weeks, he's not so sure how long exactly it will take, but he knows that there is no giving up. _I should've told you all what I planned to do. It just required so many variables that I wasn't sure how to go about it. _

Pollux smiles warmly at him, resting a hand on his shoulder. "I shouldn't have doubted you, Rennie. You've gotten us this far."

Hale frowns to herself, having spent the last few minutes switching back and forth between the monitors and the holographic display of the city. "Why is part of the city drowned in black?"

"It'd be the bomb," Criston explains. "I made it so it would jam radio frequencies and power outputs in a five mile radius," he smiles to himself. "Just enough so Bonnie won't be able to fully see us, but we can fully see them," and then with a sadder smile, eyes fliting down to the floor. "Pollux briefly told Rennie and I about Bonnie's plan, but I didn't know what it meant, the kill switch. It is to prevent her or Constantine from flipping any more and just killing the other eighteen tributes, because she very well might. Their safety was a priority."

"A priority we've failed," Hector throws the jab in, shaking his head. "But I suppose there wouldn't have been anything we could've done about that, is there?"

He could go over a thousand different scenarios in his head, but Rennie knows there's nothing he could do to change the course of the future. All the events that have happened in his life have led to this moment, to this particular circumstance, where he has a city on the down and outs, and a plan floating about in the sky... it all relies on whatever insanities Bonnie is willing or rather unwilling to contribute. It will not be a ceasefire type of battle, either, but Rennie knows they're in no state to try and pursue Bonnie and Lazarus and the others. He has the time to sit and wait, to sit and gather the forces that will fall from the heavens by morning, if all else should go to plan. It is late, however, and sleep is pulling at his eyelids... but he can't sleep, not yet.

"What do we do now, Rennie?" Kevia wonders, and all the eyes in the room go to him, but to his credit, he doesn't jump. It is as if his explosion rocked only the mansion, and the Capitol is sleeping silently... for _now. _"I mean, Bonnie is gonna retaliate, right?"

_She doesn't know where any of us are. She doesn't know about this base or its location. _He alternates between his sign language and typing on the tablet for his responses.

"But do we have a plan?" the victor from District One persists.

_Of course we do. I want to wait for Valencia and Lance with the tributes before that, however. _

"And in the meantime?" Pollux frowns, crossing his arms over his chest.

Rennie knows that Pollux and Kevia mean well, by wanting to look out for the wellbeing of the campaign and all that, but he only trusts them so far. Kevia, as he believed, is Bonnie's little rat, crawling back and forth between sides since she needs every meal she can get. It is her that causes the Merviere family to fall into such a divide, isn't it? He knows Pollux meant well, too, in saying he'd kill his sister for him, but things got too far, and too many exotic spots were tasted... and secrets were told and kept from each other, he is not afraid any longer to lose those closer to him as long as it means she falls.

As long as Bonnie falls, then it is all worth it.

He cannot help the smirk that crosses his face at the thought, and he types out his response.

_We wait. _

* * *

**_Bonnie Rodney: President of Panem P.O.V_**

* * *

No! No! Nononononononononono! This is not how it is supposed to go! They were to bow to her! She's screaming and fighting in Lazarus's grip, his voice breaking in and out from the crackling of cinder blocks and the roof caving in, she coughing on the dust and plume cloud. She tries breaking out of his grip, someone just trying to keep her safe, but he holds her back, almost ripping her shoulder out of her socket. "Let me go!" she yells at Lazarus, but he doesn't say anything, simply holding onto her tighter and tighter. She can't hear anything over the noise of the explosion still ringing in her ears, tinnitus and sulfur, and she's coughing too, but the rage in her veins consumes all of that. Bonnie will make her way through the rubble and choke the life out of Rennie herself, and no one will stop her. Not Pollux. Not Constantine. Not Lazarus, not Valencia, not Hale, not Kevia, _no one._

_"Do you feel it? The end of your reign?" _Calhoun's voice mocks her from the grave, but he's still floating down somewhere in that river bed.

Bonnie's cry of frustration sticks in her throat as Lazarus pulls her into a set of double doors, leaving the living room space. A lot has happened in that living room, she realizes, with Lazarus's sturdy grip around her shoulders, as if protecting her chest from debris is going to save her from not being knocked out by the ceiling fan should it fall. She kills Calhoun up against the book case that she sees Lance throw to the side during all the chaos, or the couch where her husband finds that piece of Rennie's hair on her underwear, or where she holds her baby for the first time out of the hospital. Bonnie's eyes widen, and she resists against Lazarus trying to wrench her back. _Her baby. Oh no. _Di- did anything happen to her? Did someone cause a bomb to go off...?

She grapples onto Lazarus's arm, pulling at the leather and making it sag, he pausing, staring at their fearless leader with a raised eyebrow. "Have any other bombs gone off? Is she safe? _Is my daughter safe?"_ she cannot help but shout that last part out, which causes the other few members of the entourage, Constantine included, to look at her, mimicking Lazarus's worried expression.

"We'd know about any other explosions, Madam President," Constantine tells her, bobbing her stupid gray hair up and down, curls and frills rising and falling over her ears. Out of everyone left amassed in the building, she is the calmest, a rather dead set look of serenity in her eyes, and she's holding onto some sort of keyboard, but Bonnie has no idea where she's gotten it. The Head Gamemaker taps away at something on it, which pulls up on the screen attached to it. Another tremor shakes through the mansion, Bonnie gripping onto Lazarus's arm, looking around wildly. The yellow plaster of the roof is all still attached, and she sees no fractures running through the material... so where did that tremor come from? Constantine's voice pipes back up over in her pocket of the wall. "Everything else looks stabilized, Madam President. Nursery is safe and sound."

"Have everyone assemble in Command," Bonnie orders, smoothing out her the ends of her hair which have curled up against her ears. A low haze of dust settles in the hallway, giving a foggy mist air to it, and the carpet underneath her bare feet bunches up in the spots where she steps. She looks at her second in command, the man she will always trust when her life is on the line, and he looks back at her, hard blue eyes blinking, awaiting command. "I want your best to go out there and find them. They wouldn't have all been crushed."

"Yes, Madam President," Lazarus nods his head in agreement, pressing a finger up to the earpiece nestled underneath the mop of dark hair. Bonnie steps away from Lazarus, wiping away some of the smoke and dust out of her eyes, crossing over to Constantine.

"Can we fire any of the Kill Switches?" she asks. It is the best idea Constantine has ever come up with, Bonnie has to give her that. She likes her, her newly appointed Head Gamemaker, for she knows what service is. The woman knows how to keep her mouth shut and listen to her orderlies, and Lewlyn Davis should've been ousted, with this loyal servant put in her place. She won't lie, the excitement that floods through her entire body is an electrical shock to the whole system as she flips the switches for the D3M, D4M, D7M, D8F, D9F, and D11F. She cannot be bothered to remember any of their names, all blips on the radar, even the remarkably unremarkable Career. It is random, but not random at the same time.

The Head Gamemaker furrows her eyebrows together at the question. "Do- do you want to do that? Kill the other eighteen?"

It is a tempting thought, Bonnie has to admit, but something stays her hand. She wouldn't necessarily call it compassion. Calhoun knew, when he had still been kicking and breathing, that the trackers could be detonated at any time of choosing, but they being detonated in the arm is not a life threatening injury to someone's neck, or jaw, or brain exploding from the inside out, so he simply never did it. The tributes being in the arena by that time have other methods in which their actions can be punished, but it is now 2 A.M... and six tributes are about to be executed. It is a tough call, but what purpose would it serve? Would it only fuel the fires even more?

"No, Constantine," Bonnie says, but she can tell that the answer is disappointing to her Head Gamemaker, the way the eyebrows tighten, and her lips flatten out some. "Rennie threw that bomb specifically because I mentioned the Kill Switch," she straightens her back and sets her shoulders. "We let this play out like normal. I want you to go and collect the eighteen tributes that survived, and bring them to Command. We still have a Hunger Games to put on, eventually, after all."

Her words seem to be receptive, Bonnie not so sure why Constantine is looking at her like a dejected puppy, but the Head Gamemaker unsticks herself from the wall, going over to a squadron of four Peacekeepers in the middle of the hallway in the process of getting suited up. The last of the squad places his helmet on, before she reaches them, speaking softly, quickly, and rapidly. Lazarus's grip returns to Bonnie's shoulder, she being ushered out of the mansion. Every crevice looks intimidating, as if a blonde haired Avox with a bomb is going to leap from them, but the farther away she gets from the smoke, the better. She's not sure if Constantine is following her or not, but that's besides the point. She keeps her gaze straight, trying to not think about how rough Lazarus's hand is on the back of her shoulder. All she needs to do is stay calm. Everyone will be alright, and the city will not be in disarray when the sun rises as long as she stays calm and keeps her finger off of the trigger button.

Rennie and the rebellion - _pah, _she laughs to herself, _they aren't a rebellion. Just eight scared souls thinking they can fight back. Against what? Some dying kids? _\- cannot have gotten far, she surmises, and the moment Lazarus finds them safe and together, he'll strike, on her command. She'll snuff them all out, everyone everywhere will see what happens when they cross the Rodney viper. Her husband had been too weak for all of this, Bonnie thinks to herself. Calhoun would've given into whatever concessions the traitorous, lying Avox would have laid down on the table. Calhoun is not strong in spirit, nor in will, nor in the time structure of decay as his body decomposes... she hopes it is being devoured by the fish that occupy the river bed. She still finds herself cackling to herself at night in front of her bathroom mirror. Wanting to end the Hunger Games... what an _idiot. _A stupid, damn idiot.

The Command center is different from the Gamemaker Center, as when the city is being devised it is thrown into the plans that having every sort of command center be a glowing structure in the heart of downtown does not build for great defenses. Bonnie has seen the Command center once, and that had been when Rennie releases the videotape of him on camera, with that auburn hair that likes to mock her and everything she stands for. Bonnie is enjoying a mint julep out on the veranda - it is probably destroyed now, with Rennie's stupid bomb, stupid _ass, _destroying her favorite part of the entire mansion - when it is Pollux, not Lazarus - that bursts through the verandaed window/door hybrid, out of breath, sweat pouring down his face, and that they've all been called to some sort of emergency meeting.

The elevator that leads down to the Command Center is on the other side of the mansion, Bonnie filing into the elevator first, the other Peacekeepers following suit. She can feel her heart drumming underneath her shirt, and when she presses her hand up against her skin, it comes away sticky, slick with sweat. She hadn't even realized how bad she had been sweating throughout this ordeal. Bonnie closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. Everything will be okay when the sun rises, especially when the sun rises. The mansion might be in tatters, sure, but the Peacekeepers will rise for their morning coffee, and she'll rally them with some sort of speech that she'll make on the fly cause she is that type of leader, and they'll scour the city, all the while those sweet little eighteen tributes fight against one another in the arena. Although the chances of a victor coming from the same spot and same district have never been before, Bonnie finds herself rooting for that Satin Spinel girl from One. That might be because she's a dead spitting image for Valencia, but...

Bonnie isn't sure where her admiration for the girl had come from, the victor of the 4th Quarter Quell. Taking a shine to her certainly happens in the training room during the private sessions, as she'll never forget the unapologetic strength emanating from the Career's body, but even after the fact, when she specifically forces Calhoun to rig the vote-off in order to keep Valencia alive, as she could see it coming from a mile away that the Career leader from One would be the one her husband would vote for. How could he not? At worse, a girl dying of leukemia or a cute fourteen year-old who had been sleazed up by a back ally hooker versus the girl who has gotten everything she's ever wanted in life... Bonnie reads the writing on the wall clear as day, and she almost files the divorce papers that night until all the tallies on screen change, and her Valencia Shale is left standing.

She forgives her. For whatever she's done, influenced and poisoned by the words of someone who _dares _steal her hair color. Bonnie will name her child Valencia. Calhoun didn't have a name for her, since it had been one of the only things they could see eye-to-eye on, which she finds hard to believe, that they ever actually saw an eye on anything. Bonnie bites on the inside of her cheek, tearing the skin to shreds. She almost just died, and she's taking it like just any other moment in the park. She will never act like Arizona did in his final moments, swearing and screaming, crying even... she's not weak like he had been, which is why she kills him, relishing in hearing Hale's own terrified shriek boom around the empty train station. Valencia had yelled too, if she recalls.

Lazarus has kept his gaze locked on her for a few minutes, as the elevator ride takes about two to three minutes down beneath the surface, so it cannot be bombed out, and the passages cannot be snuffed out from invaders and such. She feels his eyes narrowing in between her shoulder blades, but they've now lingered there, he having a finger pressed up against his comm. She clears her throat, drawing everyone's attention in the elevator to her.

"Yes, Mr. Pietro?" she asks. It is not Lazarus in front of the other subordinates; she's learned to keep the drawstring on the pulley system close to her when it is upmost necessary, and farther away in times like these.

"A squad has reported that Ren-" his face blanches the moment he speaks the Avox's name, unable to hide the twitch of his lower lip, which Bonnie smirks at. He loses his composure unbelievably well, and her smirk however is washed away in another few moments. "The traitor and his group have disappeared..." and he pauses once again, leaning in a bit to the upper right crook of the elevator, eyes widening. "And someone just..."

"Just what, Head Peacekeeper?" Bonnie continues speaking, and then looks around. Constantine isn't with them. Where the hell is her Head Gamemaker?

"Someone has detonated the training center," Lazarus speaks, with finality, cold stone rigidness. "It has collapsed... and the eighteen tributes have escaped."

The elevator arrives at the Command Center, the doors opening, just in time for all the occupants inside to get to see Madam President Bonnie Rodney slap the Head Peacekeeper across the face. She grabs him by the lapels of his uniform, bringing him down to her level, an inch from her face. Bonnie's entire forehead is a flustered blister of enraged scarlet, her nostrils flaring, eyes wide and burning in a blaze black of retribution, teeth gritted. "They all... _escaped?_" a few of the Peacekeepers step out of the elevator away from her, Lazarus swallowing heavily, but he does not go touch the welt that is starting to form on his cheek. "You mean to tell me the tributes and the traitors escaped, _and _the training center just blew up?" Bonnie punches Lazarus directly in the liver, he collapsing to his knees, crying out on pain. She grips onto his forehead, digging in with her fingernails. _How? HOW! _"HOW DID THAT HAPPEN UNDER YOUR WATCH?" she screams at him, before pushing him off of her.

Her entire body is burning, engulfed in flames, as she steps into the Command Center. It is highly similar to that of the Gamemaker Center, swathed out in gray plating and a digital display of the Capitol instead of an arena in the center of the room, her administration already at work. Over in the corner, through a wall of Plexiglas, the nurses are setting up a nursery, Bonnie smiling to herself despite the rage coursing through her body at her little girl being tucked back into a crib, a bed next to the crib for her to sleep. She can't however, as mom is going to work.

Bonnie turns around to the elevator, one of the other Peacekeepers helping Lazarus to his feet, he locking eyes with her, but her glare causes him to look away. In her turn, however, something catches her eye, it causing her eyebrow to raise. She walks straight over to the sight, arms and hands crossed together behind her back as she reaches the other side of the center, amid a group of Peacekeepers, their gloved hands twitching to press down on the triggers to their rifles.

"Soldier O'Hara, what can I do for you today?"

It is not Amaris O'Hara, however, that answers her, the girl looking a bit shocked she is even being spoken to, nor is it the burly kid from District 10 that Bonnie faintly recognizes, but the scrawny Career from Two who bows, one hand going over his stomach, the other against his back. When he rights himself back up, Aris Lindel's eyes are glistening with fervor, delight, and something else, but Bonnie cannot place it.

"Madam President," he greets her with a smile. She smiles back at him, he is such a sweet and respectful lad. "We have a proposition for you."

* * *

**_Lance Viel: Victor of the 79th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

None of these kids know how to shut up. Lance understands that the entire training center just collapsed behind them, and maybe everyone else is dead - no, _no, _that can't be right, every tribute left alive must've survived... but he is not sure for the victors and escorts and Avoxes, and his heart sinks - but there is a certain part of traveling through a silent city on the run from Peacekeepers that demands everyone else to be, well, quiet. There is the kid Seth who will not stop swearing about fair treatment and an order from the Head Peacekeeper, and then Sage threatening to bash his head in with her fist if he doesn't pipe down, which elicits squabbling from Bloom and Cambric back at the kid, while Ciphra and Vanya are yelling at the others to keep quiet, tears streaming down the girl from Three's face, and Lance's head wants to explode.

For nearly having been stabbed to death, Valencia is taking it all swimmingly well, he notes, when he looks over at her, dark hair hidden in the sheaths of the midnight sky, and the two District 1 victors taking their charges across the city. Following Rennie's directions to the T means that Lance is going all the way across the city to an abandoned city station, a dried out husk of a fountain which can reveal a set of stairs when typing in the correct number combination. The echoing roar of the collapsing training center has echoed across the city, and the city is starting to come alive with apartment lights flipping on, and people spilling out into the streets, Capitol citizens dressed in their various assortments of night clothes, yawning, or talking to themselves in little gaggles. Lance and the tribute entourage dive into an alley when he sees the familiar wave of blizzard white scanning faces gathered in the square.

Twenty minutes pass, running through the back alley streets, until Valencia rapidly begins to tap on his arm, he skidding to a stop. The tributes behind him all fall into line, even Seth who has strangely gone quiet, and then their fearless leader - Lance will call Valencia a fearless leader, for it is what he has trained her to do from the time she's eight years old, smiling with bucked teeth and blonde hair put into pigtails - dives down a manhole, requiring Cambric and Sage to move it out of the way. He ushers the others to follow after, with Bloom and Sage both keeping their eyes on Seth, the girl from Seven grabbing him by the back of the shirt. They look at each other, piercing cold blue gazes matched evenly with an equally jaded emerald green, before Seth scowls, clamoring down the ladder. Lance looks around the vicinity, the moon shining high in the sky, and a few dull echoes booming out in the deep, but there's nothing else alarming.

He descends, covering the manhole back to its normal spot behind them. A flashlight is clipped to his belt, he turning it on, getting six pairs of terrified tributes looking back at him, ghostly appearances backlit by the ivy laden walls of the maintenance tunnel. It shouldn't be very far from here, he pushing to the front, motioning for everyone else to follow him, it going Valencia, who is holding onto the gun he requested Criston give to her, then Vanya, Bloom, Seth, Sage, Ciphra, and Cambric following suit. Lance hears chatter down on end of the tunnel, a runway of flickering and dimming lights blinking above, strips of pastel white illuminating the moss covered ground, squishy water sounds clogging underneath their feet. The smell of sweat and fear begins to override the dampness of the tunnel.

The victor from One forges on with the posse behind him, until the tunnel begins to widen out more, and the smell of sweat and cramped bodies morphs into that of grime and tar, the industrialization of war and the rising voices of dignitaries and rebels beginning to drown out the dim quiet of the maintenance hallway. Lance stops in front of the open doorway, standing to the side, pushing Valencia past him, ushering the other tributes shortly behind her. He grips down on the boy from Five's shoulder a bit harder than he knows is required, the would-be-murderer flashing him a glare, jaw tightly locked in protest, but he doesn't say anything else, following the others. Lance momentarily thinks about just ending Seth Cables and his measly life right then and there, for putting his star pupil in that kind of danger. However, it is not Rennie's missive. All the tributes need to be accounted for, and kept safe and sound...

"_We've already failed on that..." _he thinks to himself, bitterly. Are Satin and Cyril okay? The one thing he has never gotten used to, already used to losing whoever takes his spot in the Games when the tributes from One bleed out on national television, is having to replace and whip into the shape the new batch of recruits. The moment he and Kevia return from the Capitol, not on speaking terms, but needing to work together regardless, Satin and Cyril arrive at their front doors the very next day for the last step of training, the one final push towards preparation. "_One can never be fully prepared," _Lance's thoughts darken, he grimacing, before fully stepping into the room.

The Command Center is buzzing and awake, Rennie, Pollux, and the other victors already assembled, huddled around the main table. Lance clears his throat, getting their attention, six heads picking up at once and their bodies all turning around. Kevia races away from the table first, throwing her arms around Valencia in a hug. Lance smiles, pushing through, hugging her too. He doesn't know where he stands with her fully, just a week ago yelling at her and throwing cups of coffee around her house, but he senses something changing in his fellow victor, a tumultuous sea and a turbulent tide washing her fears and worries away. Rennie reaches over the table and grabs his tablet, while Criston then hugs Valencia as well, both Hector and Hale standing in the back, fidgeting to themselves.

It is Pollux that greets them heartedly, stepping up to the center with Rennie and Valencia flanking him by the sides.

"Wait a minute..." it is the girl, Ciphra, who's face is still shimmering with tears, and Lance notices for the first time all the blood splatters all over her body. Whose blood would that be? "You," the girl continues, raising a finger and pointing directly at Rennie, whose face flutters with uneasiness, "You're that Avox who made the video, didn't you? It got broadcast on Reaping Day?"

"He is," Criston pipes up. Lance realizes that none of the tributes associated with any of the victors currently in the room belong to anyone. He doesn't have Ponty and Amaris. Aris and Maren are gone for Hale, Hector wouldn't even know who Vivian or Rodric were... something about that causes him to choke on a gasp, he coughing to block it out. The victor from Six continues, a faint smile dancing on his lips. "This is Rennie Davis, and he's the one you should be thanking."

"Thanking?" pipes up Sage Dagoba, and Valencia's eyes raise at the tone. Lance has heard Kevia use it a time or twenty before. "I lost my district partner, and so did Vanya, and so did Ciphra, and so did Cambric..." and everyone's gazes fall, those who would've been keeping eye contact with her. "If there is some sort of rebellion going on, you should've told us."

"We couldn't," Kevia insists from her stance, going to lean up against the far right wall. "It was too dangerous."

"Aren't you Kevia Janelle?" Vanya asks, and he's staring directly at the female victor. "You don't strike me as being anti-Capitol... anti-Hunger Games-"

"Let's say things have changed," she interrupts him, a solid edge to her voice, and her eyes flash out a glare; Lance is familiar with her glares.

"This is it?" Pollux asks, and he cannot hide the surprise in his voice. "Just... six?"

"Ciphra Longsdale of District 3, Seth Cables of District 5, Sage Dagoba of District 7, Cambric Vogel of District 8, Vanya Vasiliev of District 11, and Bloom Estrada of District 12," Valencia reads from the far left side of the Command Center, staring up at the monitors, and then the new victor looks back at the gathered tributes. "By the time we got there, six were already dead..." and her face falls. "Bonnie wasn't lying, if that's the one thing I know about her. When she speaks, she's telling the truth," Valencia looks at the holographic display of the city. "Three of the tributes were gone when we arrived, and then the other nine were separated from us when some Peacekeepers came and-" she stops, choking on her words, squeezing her eyes shut.

It's gone. The Training Center is just... _gone. _Lance still can't believe it, or wrap his head around such a thought that something that massive has just vanished into dust, and all the bodies inside. He didn't know Emmett too well, Cyril's father, but the man had been a right prick in his drunken states, or Ellison from District 2, a man who lived to be eighty... Lance presses himself further into the wall, a lump forming in his throat. Bonnie killed all of them. Just like how she killed the tributes, without mercy, without hesitation... this is why she must be stopped. There are no negotiations. There is no room to wiggle or allow expansion... it is a fine cut line, and he will gladly light the match that makes the executive slash. Lance joins the collection of victors, now looking back at the tributes, and he can see the terror in their eyes, and the exhaustion wrangling their bones. It hits him then just how late it is, when looking at some of the monitors... it is almost four in the morning, and yet no one has collapsed yet.

"What is all this?" Cambric asks, his eyes searching over every object in the room, his dark skin glowing coal underneath the swinging halogen lamps above.

"The Phoenix, Mr. Vogel," Pollux nods his head, a surge of pride rising in his voice. "An underground rebellion against President Rodney and the establishment, to end her tyranny, and to end the Hunger Games."

"Aren't you part of the establishment?" Seth frowns, crossing his arms over his chest. "You're one of the administration faculty; you're Master of Ceremonies after all." His gaze is a stormy grey, but Pollux does not back down, looking directly at Seth too. "How can we trust that more of our trackers won't explode and kill us? What's preventing the president or Head Gamemaker from doing that again?"

"We were all in the mansion before we came and got you," Lance says, and the attention in the room diverts to him, he rubbing his hands up and down his arms, a sudden shudder coming on. "Rennie threw a bomb and caused the roof to explode, separating us from them, and we went our separate ways to get the base ready, and to come rescue you. Criston here," he nods at the victor, "Had created a special wavelength frequency in the detonated bomb that would jam up their communications and make the power that came from the device which powered the trackers unusable."

"We're just supposed to accept that?" Ciphra frowns.

"Unfortunately, yes," Criston chews on the inside of his cheek, crossing his arms. "Take our word... and faith," he adds after a second.

Rennie holds out his tablet, having typed a few sentences down during the rest of the conversation. "_I am not asking much of you, tributes. Our priority was to get you all away from her, but we have failed. We do not ask any of you to fight, but our rebellion has begun. You will be safe here, away from-"_

"No," Sage interrupts, pushing herself to the forefront. Rennie raises his eyebrows in surprise, the air tightening around them in the Command Center. All eyes are on the burly girl from Seven, her hair a breathing and alive rope of flame, dancing underneath the swinging lights. "I just witnessed my thirteen year-old district partner get murdered, if what you're saying is true," and she lifts her head up in triumph. "I may be able to escape an arena, but I am not going to walk away from a warzone. I'm going to fight."

"I lost someone too," Cambric says, and Lance notices a sheet of crimson covering his training uniform as well, a blackening wave. "I admitted it in my interview to Mr. Aetos. I'm a medic," he crosses his arms likewise, gaze unflinching. "I'm not backing down from the fight either. You say it's a war? You'll need medics."

Everyone but Seth steps forward, volunteering themselves to the cause. Lance raises an eyebrow at the sudden show of hands and volunteers, locking eyes with Kevia. _This changes the game, doesn't it? _Rennie and Pollux exchange a silent gaze as well with one another, a chess game of conversations passing between the two men. The Avox signs away something, but Lance is unable to decipher what is being said between them. Pollux hisses something, eyes darting to the holograph of the city, and the victor's gaze follows. It is updated in real time, a smoldering, smoking crater rising from the center of the city, and the lump returns. He's all of a sudden very aware of how hard his heartbeat is beating in his chest, when he raises his hand to rest it up against the fabric of his shirt.

Pollux and Rennie right themselves away from the table, the former speaking. "We will not force you out of this fight, as we'll need every man we can get, but please," the Master of Ceremonies' voice rises into a whine, the most desperate sounding noise, almost like the cry of a dying seal, as he speaks. "Please understand the risk you're taking."

"You said it yourselves though," the girl, Bloom Estrada, who is in the front, says, her dark hair glistening in the blueberry sheen of the hologram. "Even if we do nothing, we can still die from the trackers in our necks, which we can't ever have removed... and it sounds like you need all the help you can get, and I don't think you're in the place to refuse us, are you?"

"No, Miss Estrada, we're not," Hale speaks out from her side of the table, arms pressed into one of the grooves of the table. "We seriously do need every hand we can get."

"There are beds and bathrooms down the right corridor," Pollux points out, which is a path spilling from the center of the Command Center, illuminated by another overhead strip of blinking, dying out lights, a stormy seaward cave with lightning flashes every few seconds. "For now, Bonnie and the Peacekeepers not aligned with us," Lance notices how all the tributes have their eyebrows raise at that mentioning, and he smirks to himself. They've been busy, not just for a month, but for a year, for _years _this has been building, and he couldn't believe it is a spark ignited by a woman that would normally be detrimental to the cause dying, and her brother picking up the pitchfork. "Please, get some rest. You are safe here, tonight, we swear. We all convene in the morning, and Rennie will tell us what our next move is."

It seems to do the trick, Sage grabbing Ciphra by the hand, pulling her along, while Bloom, Cambric, and Vanya clumped together, talking to each other in hushed voices, following the girl. All that remains is Seth Cables, the District 5 Male standing there with a passive look on his face, Lance's eyes flickering to Valencia. She nods at him, the two District 1 victors converging on the kid together.

He barely has time to jump in place, eyes widening and passing back and forth, before Lance places a hand on his shoulder.

"You don't get to go away that easily," he says, trying to mask the glee in his voice, from the way the kid squirms. "You understand, don't you?"

* * *

**_Constantine Fallorne: Head Gamemaker P.O.V_**

* * *

She has to make sure she isn't being followed. A tail is not something she needs to be dealing with right now. Under the veil of night, with her smile still strapped to her face, as she hears the deafening roar of the RPG rockets obliterate the Training Center to smithereens, maybe even wiping out a whole city block if she's lucky - what had it been she told Valencia? Order is overrated? That chaos is where it is at... - Constantine exits from the mansion out of a lower back door exit. She is no use in Command with Bonnie and Lazarus, as her talents are wasted. Sure, the order to protect all the tributes and get them to the mansion is overturned in her own order, that rather Madam President requests the entire building be destroyed, but it is not like anyone will just miss the building, will they? Even though she's sure no other tributes die in the fallout, there is every other victor or mentor or escort sleeping the building that are now dead, floating like ash in the breeze... _what a happy thought. _

Constantine believes she should rather be rewarded, for her service. She's just wiped out who knows how many potential traitors and saved Bonnie, when this little rebellion is snuffed out of course, from needing to tear the building down, cause it is for sure going to take some heavy fire in the days to come. Being stuck underground trying to find a needle in a haystack is not her idea of a good time - lord knows, she hasn't touched a man in _decades, _ever since the passing of that poor Richard husband of hers... she likes watching his throat dissolve, choking on the battery acid in his coffee, as she digs the pointed bit of her heel further into his putty-like skin - and it means her talents are wasted, so she might as well traipse elsewhere. The entire city is alive, but Lazarus's Peacekeepers are sending them back to bed, to wipe away the memory that a training center even existed in its spot in the first place... and it is all working according to plan.

The plan? Constantine has no idea; she rather makes the shit up as she goes, if she is perfectly honest with herself. She'll have to handle it to Rennie though, someone she has watched on the outskirts for a long time, a man who abided his patience and did as he's told, even while his cheeks flush scarlet from the insults or jobs he's forced to do. Constantine would twirl a lock of gray hair, bleached out by the sun, around her fingers, and see the way Lewlyn bows down next to her brother, or how their hands would splay over one another, eyes narrowing in to read the words on their lips, mouthing secret confessions of love and passion back and forth. She could taste the fresh scent of spilled blood in her mouth, an aroma of a bit lip, or an incision cut too hard, or Lewlyn's blade slicing Rennie's tongue into three before she consumes it, commentating on how it tastes like veal...

The Head Gamemaker gets so caught up in her thoughts that she doesn't realize that she arrives at her destination, walking practically into the doors at full speed. "Ah," she smiles to herself, pressing a hand up to her forehead, and the grin grows further at the realization that there's no bruise. What's the maximum speed someone can reach and collide into a door with and not injure themselves... what's the number? If she had the time, Constantine admits, to no one in particular as there is no one to listen to her, she might end up participating in that experiment one day. Maybe Valencia would like to do it? Or Pollux? He'd deserve it, she grumbles to herself, silently, for calling her some sort of dying spring chicken... as if he has yet to look into a mirror lately.

She wrenches the door to the Gamemaker Center open, stepping inside and shutting it immediately behind her. Constantine's heart begins to beat faster in her chest as she races over to the far set of stairs, the ones that extend down to the main floor with the hologram of the arena that would be used. Had it been any other normal day, there would be a few Avoxes preparing the lunch trays already, even at four in the morning, yes... it is important, Constantine argues. All the little things that make the world go round, it is on the brunt task and laboring of those poor traitorous souls. Constantine hopes that within a week's time she'll get to be the one, since Lewlyn has taken the honor up before, that when the victors who have dared go against the Panemian state are on their knees, begging for forgiveness, that she's holding the machete that'll sever their heads from their necks, and their tongues from their throats. She'll deserve the honor, and there is no way Bonnie is going to be able to refuse her.

Not after all she's done.

Constantine takes off her heels, a rather thin pair of stilettos with the ends of the points paint chipping off by the rather manic skip in her step as she twirls underneath the moonlit sky away from the mansion. Bonnie won't follow, nor will Lazarus, as the tunnels beneath the Center are her playground. When she takes over the righted ship from Lewlyn's tragic and unfortunate demise - _"Just tragic," Constantine cries into her elbow, blowing her nose and dropping the discarded tissue on the woman's tombstone, before kicking it, "Just tragic," she laments _\- the playground hadn't been touched in ten years. It somehow gave Lewlyn Davis the creeps, but there's never been another person in the world she's ever been more scared of, being unable to predict what her old boss would say or do. Would she be next to be turned into some sort of sexual deviant?

The stairs are cold to the touch, the muscles on her feet spasming as she races down them, before needing to stop halfway through, as she's sixty-five, and she does not have the same limber in her step as Kevia Janelle. She wants to ask Rennie and Pollux, before their also untimely demises, just how they convince the kleptomaniac, stealing bitch with rough hair extensions to actually join their pathetic cause. If she's so lucky, Constantine may get the chance herself one day, as a blood sun rises over the Panemian skyline, and the crowds will cheer her name. She's their savior, she led the world out of darkness, and Constantine Fallorne will have her name forever shrouded in the lights of heaven, God's voice calling a daughter, an angelic paragon of servitude, home.

She reaches the end of the stairway, pushing through another set of doors, the pillars of moonlight which decorate the main room of the Gamemaker Center disappearing behind the shut doors, leaving Constantine in total darkness.

The Head Gamemaker presses her back into the smooth linoleum, feeling her snare drum heartbeat thrum in her chest. Her hands are trembling as she raises her arms, and Constantine realizes that her entire body is shaking at this point, now. She claps her hands together, and God announces that there may be light.

The hallway she is standing in erupts in a sheen of white light, soft and gentle to the eyes, spotlights every few feet coming on at the command of her clap. Constantine unsticks herself from the door, breathing in through her mouth and out through her nose, just like the cardiologist tells her for that physical awhile ago. The main thoroughfare is lit up, but that is not bringing in the sides, chambers of darkness lining up the alley of brightness. What shines in the light is all wonderful and all, but it does not compare to what lurks in the blackness, in the abyss that awakens to the sound of her clap.

Constantine moves over to the closest cage near her, crouching down to her feet, which she could not do had she still been wearing her heels. All she has to do and wait, the reverberation of her breath echoing around the chamber, and she tightens her grip on the bars of the cell, leaning in so her face is stuck between two worlds: freedom and prisons.

It is enough, however, the slow and subtle shift of the bars, when a growl emanates from the darkness. If she squints - damn the ophthalmologist that is unable to perfect her vision; it's alright, the woman made a wonderful statue in the latest art gallery over by the train station, she won't be missed - Constantine makes out two eyes, glowing crimson out in the dark, and then the eyes slowly getting closer and closer, the growl coming again from the bleakness, morphing into a purr.

A paw emerges barely out of the dark, but not much more, Constantine making a cooing noise in her throat.

"Oh, my beauty," she exhales a light breath, extending her hand out through the bars, just an inch away from the paw, the tiny hairs on her hands bristling at potential contact. "We have work to do, my darling."

The underground beast awakens, and the first night of the Phoenix Rebellion falls over Panem.

Until the sun rises...

* * *

_**Tribute List (Boy - Girl)**_

District 1: **Cyril Barther **[_Submitted by thorne98_] / **Satin Spinel **[_Submitted by_ _Mistycharming_]

District 2: **Aris Lindel **[_Submitted by grimbutnotalways_] / **Maren Johnson **[_Submitted by Crashed Ice24_]

District 3: **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 4: **Anahita Cascade** [_Submitted by Reader Castellan_]

District 5:** Seth Cables** [_Submitted by Nemris_] / **Sophiana Delarosa **[_Submitted by Santiago Poncini20_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara **[_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 7: **Sage Dagoba **[_Submitted by AlexFalTon_]

District 8: **Cambric Vogel **[_Submitted by dyloccupy_]

District 9: **Jason Lacey **[_Submitted by ilvidis_]

District 10: **Rodric Oxford **[_Submitted by Alexcias_] / **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

District 11: **Vanya Vasiliev **[_Submitted by TheMayflyProject_]

District 12: **Mirek Bosco **[_Submitted by curiousclove_] / **Bloom Estrada **[_Submitted by LordShiro_]

...

**_Capitol Cast of__ Characters_**

_President of Panem:_ **Bonnie Rodney**_  
_

_Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: _**Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies: _**Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games: _**Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: _**Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: _**Hale Cornerstone**

_Victor of the 77th Hunger Games: _**Hector Merviere**

_Victor of the 84th Hunger Games: _**Kevia Janelle**

_Head Gamemaker: _**Constantine Fallorne**

_Head Peacekeeper: _**Lazarus Pietro**

* * *

**Alrighty, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #25: Underground Defense, of Bombs and Bullets, focusing more on the fallout of Rennie's actions and the Kill Switch aftermath... and oh boy, I am so excited I just want to burst out of my chair. There are just thirteen chapters left, ya'll, and I don't know if there is really a way for me to prepare you or prep you all for what is coming... so just strap yourselves in and enjoy the ride, haha. So, we've got a quite lull settling over the Capitol, but that is all going to change starting next chapter guys, when the morning comes. For intents and purposes of the story, since I know many of you keep track of tribute statuses on your profiles, that unless I say something, a tribute / Capitol chapter duo is a single day, and then so on and so forth will be another day, and on and on we go... okay? AND, guess what? Bombs and Bullets has broken 200k for the word count! That's amazing!**

**I am planning on having Chapter #26: Hallways of Darkness, sometime out by or before March 13th, which is a Friday, and the day before my Spring Break starts. It is going to be a tribute POV chapter with six POVs coming at ya, as we've got a lot of ground to cover, and not a whole lot of room to cover it in, but I'm so excited for it that the adrenaline in my veins is making me want to stay up till all the hours of the night just to write this, haha, which I know isn't healthy. More names will be getting deleted from that list, ladies and gentlemen, and it is only a matter of time. Please review! It'd mean so much to me, and as usual, thank you all for your incredible support. I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	26. Hallways of Darkness (Phoenix IV)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #26: Hallways of Darkness. We, ladies and gentlemen, are officially in the thick of things that is the Phoenix Rebellion, our replacement for the 101st Hunger Games, where we have the Phoenix company led by ex-avox Rennie Davis against the current Capitol administration led by Bonnie Rodney... and our eighteen remaining tributes caught up in the crossfire between. Last chapter was setting up camp, establishing bases, and now we're in overdrive. This is a tribute POV chapter with six POVs coming at you today, and I am so excited as there are a few marked chapters that will have me shake my hands with glee... for we are twelve chapters near the end; hold onto your horses. I hope you enjoy Chapter #26: Hallways of Darkness.**

* * *

_ And so sayeth the Lord, protect me as I walk through the valley of death, with the shadows above me preying on my weak flesh._

**_Ponty Carr: District 6 Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

The panic that sits in his veins has started to quiet down, but it is still ever so present, speaking in hushed whispers that glide over his exposed arms. He shivers, holding his sides tight as he wraps his arms around his midsection, keeping his jaw clamped shut so it doesn't shake in cold trembles. Their hearty group of himself, Vivian, Anahita, Cyril, Maren, and Jason do not get very far in the starting of their journey, perhaps just only half a mile from the hole they drop down into, away from the training center. Of the six of them, Cyril is the quietest one of the group, which Ponty finds strange, for he's seen the Career chat up Satin or Maren or Jules a hundred times before during training, or when they're waiting to be called for the Private Sessions. Why would this one be any different?

Ponty closes his eyes, hugging the hammer he had picked up from the weapons rack close to him, but when he had opened his eyes just a few hours later, getting only about seven hours or so of sleep, his breathing skyrockets, as if he had inhaled soot or ashes from the smelting fireplace. That startles Vivian awake, who goes for her bow, pointing down the dim alleyway should a goon in their white uniforms appear, but it is only a false alarm. It happens the first night he had fallen asleep on the train ride to the Capitol, Ponty recalls, and the first night after the tribute parade; waking up to a different ceiling startles him into a frenzy. It is an Avox the first two times, but this time it is Vivian and Maren's hands on his shoulders, pinning him down to the ground, keeping him tethered to reality.

That had been thirty minutes ago by this point, in which a faint blush settles itself onto Ponty's cheeks, a tinge of pink in the blinking haze of the lights above. Strangely enough, after a few dull drums in the deep, the city is quiet once more, or at the very least, their part of the city is quiet once more. An overwhelming sense of desperation has started to sit on his shoulders, and Ponty realizes this with a heavy breath, about what had actually happened last night. Humiliated on stage in front of the entire country, scored below par due to a grandmother's bias, an argument where he calls the least favorite person he's ever met psychotic, awoken by a Capitol ballet dancer who reeks of ego, sees six heads exploded in front of him, RPG's fired at his face, and an entire building collapsing to the ground, just barely killing them... Ponty is okay with sitting out of life for about another two weeks or so, to give him time to catch his breath.

They haven't had anything to eat, although Anahita does spy a rat scuttling around before they all decide to crash for the night, but Ponty shudders at the thought. He is _not _eating a rat, do any of them have any idea how nasty and disgusting and disease ridden those vermin are? Jason shows a bit of displeasure as well, but Maren and Vivian's faces are rather stone cold about it, and Cyril is unemotive, that still bothering the District Six male. Vivian gets to her feet, brushing off her knees, having slept with her body tucked in together, the flashiness of the red bow in her hair strikingly similar to all the spilt blood that is lying on the training center floor. Another shudder ripples through his body. He's seen someone get their head split open once by a Peacekeeper baton, and he's seen plenty of deaths watching the Games beforehand... but _this? _This is different.

"Alrighty, guys, are you ready?" Vivian asks, looking back at them all.

"Ready to go where?" Jason frowns, and he stretches again, balancing on the blunt end of the spear. Ponty remembers hearing from the kid's interview that he's the son of the mayor, but there's a hint of distaste hiding under the kid's tongue as he speaks, and Jason's brow furrows, a cold stare replacing the more jovial one as he speaks with Pollux, as if being the mayor's son had been a problem.

"I don't know truthfully," the older girl admits, biting down on her lower lip. Standing under the swinging lights, a warm and austere glow falls on Vivian's face, a blend of orange light and shadow. Ponty overhears Rodric telling District Seven and Eight - or rather the only two pairs who would even listen to him - that she had given herself a nickname, _The Tigress. _Vivian is apt in her descriptions, Ponty surmises, seeing the look. It is fitting, and she's telling the truth, ferocity shrouding her form. "Lance and Valencia briefly mentioned some sort of rebellion, right?" There are nods all around. "They took Ciphra, Bloom, Vanya, Cambric, Sage, and Seth... I think we should find them."

"J- join the rebellion?" Anahita's statement comes out more in the stretch of a squeak, and her eyes are wide. "You're serious?"

"Well, do you have any better options?" Maren asks, looking at the little girl, and there's a stony edge in her gaze as well. "We all agreed to follow Vivian, and she wants to go join the rebellion, I suggest we do that. It was that or we starve to death by just sitting here," the girl from Two rubs her arms innocuously, fixating on a spot just past Ponty's left ear, he looking behind him to see what she's staring at. It is a rugged black stain on the wall, like a snuffed out cigarette, and he looks back at her, Maren's stony gaze replaced with that of a more melancholic tone. "Besides, I have a feeling things are gonna get worse. That they're gonna get a lot worse."

"Ponty, what would you want to do?" Jason pipes up, looking over at him.

He jostles in place slightly. No one ever goes to him for his opinion on anything, certainly not back in District 6. His parents trusted his advice on glass blowing, but this is a matter of life and death. Ponty clears his throat, scratching at the back of his neck sheepishly. "You sure there's gonna be no way to leave the city?" It is a stupid question as he asks it, he realizes, but Ponty blurts it out anyways. Even if they were to escape to the train station, how would they operate them? Despite being from Six, he knows next to nothing about anything in that field, let alone what lies beyond the Capitol and walking through the uncharted forests in Districts Two and One, which would also be death sentences; everyone everywhere knows their faces.

"We're stuck here," Vivian shakes her head back and forth, affirming his idiocy. "The arena shifted from a dome to the Capitol, and so Maren is right," at the mentioning of her name, the Career's eyes sparkle some, a soft smile dancing on her lips. "There's gonna be a fight of some kind, and I do not want to be caught in the middle of it."

"How would we know where to find them?" Anahita gets to her feet, tucking in the two knives she had taken from the training center into the belt loop of her pants. Ponty realizes, with hindsight, how clever it had been of Vanya to ask everyone to get dressed up in their training uniforms, otherwise he can only imagine eighteen tributes running around the Capitol in only their sleepwear, underwear, and non-fighting attire, although this is no suit of armor he's got on either.

"Wherever the action would be, I suppose," is Vivian's answer, but the confidence in her voice dies down to a crawl, she chewing on the inside of her cheek; he can see the thoughts racking her brain. He's seen the same look on Amaris's face, gauging the responses she'd say to him in one of his bite backs. Is she doing alright? He doesn't actually care, but Ponty is not going to say he doesn't wonder.

"Wouldn't that be the opposite of what we want to do?" Jason twirls the spear around some, Ponty standing back so it doesn't slice his chest open. The kid is much taller than he had anticipated, now physically standing next to him, at the point where the spear is shorter than the mayor's son is tall. "I thought we wanted to stay _safe._"

"If you have any better ideas," Vivian says, crossing her arms over her chest, bow and quiver slung over her shoulder, "I'd love to hear them, Jason." He doesn't say anything, the crow tasting bitter on his tongue as Ponty sees Jason make a sour face, before looking away, the Tigress's gaze bearing into him. "Well, if that settles it, I suggest we get out of the-"

"I want to kill the president," says Cyril, he having been the furthest removed, but Ponty almost doesn't hear him, the Career from One's voice being barely above a faint whisper. All five pairs of eyes fall on him, the teenager getting to his feet, lumbering the sword behind him that he had taken, the metal scratching and digging into the floor, a low whine echoing along the chamber walls. Cyril's face is a choked red, similar to that of the number insignia on their chest, his bright and burning charcoal red _1\. _A few dried tears stick to his cheeks, his voice raspy, and Ponty recognizes that the soft whimper he hears while trying to get comfortable is Cyril... _crying. _

"Cyril?" Anahita takes a step forward, towards him, a hand outstretched, but she doesn't approach any further. The mood of the tunnel sinks down some, a pit in Ponty's chest where the cold north winds rush to fill in the gap, as if he's inhaling a block of ice to sit in his small intestinal cavity.

The Career tightens his grip around the sword, and every time he unlatches his hand, Ponty gets a glimpse at the blisters underneath, swollen and puffy splotches of irritated vermillion against the pale surface, and Cyril's breath comes out in a tremble. "My father was a mentor this year," he looks directly at Vivian, and for once, Ponty sees their somewhat fearless leader have to break her own gaze. "He was a drunk, yeah, and not perfect, but still my Dad," he nods, balling up his tongue in his mouth. "Those Peacekeepers destroyed the Center, and we all gathered down there without waking anyone up, meaning the Peacekeepers just killed every other mentor, escort, Avox, and whoever else was in there, including my Dad," he shakes his head back and forth. "Madam President ordered them to do that, and now it's personal." Vivian returns to looking at Cyril, and the look in her eyes matches his. "She's a dead woman."

Ponty smiles to himself at the thought. Six tributes on the down and out, almost killed by their benevolent creator, for them to be cast aside and destroyed by those they were going to eliminate.

It is almost poetic.

He cannot wait to see the moment when Madam Rodney, _Bonnie _\- _What a stupid name, _Ponty thinks to himself with a scoff - is on her hands and knees, begging for mercy, and Cyril beheads her with his sword.

It is almost as if the history books would be able to write themselves.

He finds himself grinning alongside Vivian, but not just Vivian, but Jason and Anahita too. "She killed Jules," Anahita whispers.

"Audhild died because of her," Jason's voice is solid, and a murderous glare builds behind his diamond stare.

Vivian looks around at the group, and Ponty does likewise, moving his hands up and down the shaft of the hammer. She grins, perhaps the first true joyous expression he's seen from her since being reaped. "We have a president to kill," she announces, and without a second thought, turns around, sprinting down the hallway, the others following in pursuit.

* * *

**_Rodric Oxford: District 10 Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

His head is killing him, but that's an understatement. Rodric's mouth feels like he's been punched in said orifice over and over again, but truth be told, he isn't exaggerating, as a few of the Peacekeepers - _white dogs,_ Rodric sneers to himself, spitting a hock of blood onto the tile floor, _stupid white dogs _\- continue having their fun jeering him, poking him, and yes, with the watchful eyes of Aris Lindel never leaving his body, smacking him in the face. He tries leaping at one of them, but is pushed back against the wall, head slammed into it, and star ways make themselves known to him as Rodric collapses with a groan back down to the floor, and the kicking resumes. Honestly, it feels like he's back in fourth grade again, and his brother shouting insults atop the jungle gym while his buddies go hammering away. Rodric sees a ledger of vermillion cross his vision before one good kick sends him into the bleak and black world of unconsciousness.

When he comes to, Rodric tries getting to his feet, but something yanks him back. He looks at his right hand, which is the side that kept him pinned to the floor, and there's a silver handcuff linked to the bar lining the outer surface of the room. He yanks on it, but it's not budging, and the chain only extends to about a foot away from him, which means he isn't going anywhere. Rodric hisses, placing a hand to his forehead, and there's a lump rising just in the middle from where the boot must've connected to his face. Great, now he's hideous. Well, it isn't saying _much, _but still.

Looking around the room, all he sees are officials in white. The space is quite massive, at least the size of the training center floor, if not a bit higher than that. All he remembers is Aris slamming a hand against his throat and a pressure point, a wave of blackness, being brought to by a pail of water to the system, and then kicked at and made fun of by the same white dogs patrolling the ground floor, only to be knocked out all over again. What a ride. On the far wall, if Rodric twists his body enough as the handcuff will allow him as it digs into his wrist, starting to flare up on a cut he earns in training with a sickle, are monitors, but Rodric cannot fully see what is on them, except a bright blurb in one of the corners that looks like the blue sky. Is- is this the Gamemaker Center?

Walking directly in front of him, towards him rather, is someone that causes him to sneer. Aris Lindel, and next to him, a woman that makes all the mouth in his water dry up. _Madam President._ On the Career's face is a smug expression, cheekbones pulled back and taut, eyes glistening with fervor. Rodric cannot believe he thought even for a second, watching the arrogant pipsqueak train with his shirt off, that he had been attractive. The Oxford family wouldn't have approved of his intrigues, and it burns him to the core that Vivian is able to pick up on it without even as much as glancing in his direction, yet his mother walks around blind, wondering why there's never been a girl in his room. Rodric has always found himself finding the villains of society to be the attractive ones, to be the ones that get the most raised eyebrows and head turns, but Aris is just another scum sucking pig in a gaggle of them.

"Look at you," Aris smiles at him, hands in his pockets, and Rodric's eyes appraise over him. Something's different about the Career, but he cannot put a finger on it. "You're finally awake."

"Screw off, Lindel," Rodric spits at him, trying to lash out once more, before his body is brought back down to ground zero, back to the humiliation of being someone's prisoner. The president looks at him, a bleak emotion reflecting off of her diamond eyes, and she tucks her lips inside her mouth. She's holding onto a coffee cup, and there are lipstick stains around the rim. Rodric looks in between the two captors, keeping his eyes directly on Amaris O'Hara instead, she standing in a full Peacekeeper uniform in the center of the room, her gaze directly on the monitors.

"Did you have a nice nap?" the Career baits him again, and if Rodric had the ability to free himself from the constraints, he'd throttle Aris right here and now. Sure, he got a five in the private sessions because he _couldn't _fight, but adrenaline does something to him, he constantly riding the wave of adrenaline and leaping for the stars despite they being so high up above him. There's never been a limit Rodric has been unable to break, or a stop sign he simply doesn't blow past.

"I said _screw off,_" he hisses at him through clenched teeth.

The president crouches down next to him, setting her coffee cup aside, and she places a hand underneath his chin, forcing him to look at her. Rodric grits his teeth down even harder, hard enough where he can feel the vibrations in his skull and at his temples. His left hand can't reach her throat, or knock away her other hand from keeping his chin in place, and Aris smirks, going back by Amaris's side. "Do you know who I am?" the woman asks Rodric, but there's no malice in her voice, almost as if she is entirely incapable of producing such an emotion. Rodric remembers seeing her standing high above them all, dressed entirely in her snowstorm outfit, a decadent cloud moving through the gilded Capitol streets. He also remembers the video during the reaping, with the Avox's red hair and their silent hand motions as they show card after card of the truth, a truth he believes. He can tell just by looking at her what she's capable of. This is a ruse. All an act.

"You're the president," Rodric says, and his eyes flit down to her dainty fingers. She's wearing a wedding ring, which has him raise an eyebrow. Isn't her husband dead? To be supposedly killed by the victors that had been standing next to her during the parade?

"Please, call me Bonnie," she smiles, and he shudders. That smile is filled to the brim with venom, a shot of vodka is nicer than that, compared to the burning feeling in his throat. This woman in front of him is more likely to kill him than a full bottle. To his credit, although no one will certainly be applauding him for it, Rodric goes entirely cold turkey since he's been in the Capitol, ever since admitting to Vivian the truth about his drinking; it may have only been seventy-two hours, but he could go for a rum or a whiskey without hesitation. He would have to fight the hesitation to throw the drink in the president's - _excuse me, Bonnie, _Rodric scoffs to himself, _her name is Bonnie; get it right, loser _\- face first, but then that'd be an amazing waste of the alcohol. There's nothing better than alcohol, except maybe a man's kiss, but Rodric hasn't had enough of those to make a decision.

He is not going to call her that. Preferably, he'd just spit in her face. "Are you my captor?"

Bonnie considers the question with a frown, and he sees her cheeks shift some to the right, as if she's biting the opposite one, clenching down hard by the looks of it. "I suppose so," and she smiles at him again, blinking. "I am very aware that you tributes do not know what is happening outside, but it doesn't mean I can just let you all run free and escape the Games, can I?" Something tells him that Bonnie will not wait for a response, and he's right, as she talks directly over him had he started to say anything. "Mr. Lindel and Miss O'Hara told me they had a proposition for me, and it's not often you youngsters are ever that brave to approach a president with a proposition," her mouth pops on the 'o' sound, and Rodric winces at the noise. And the usage of youngsters. Youngsters? Really? "Their lives and service, for yours."

"So you're going to kill me?" Rodric asks, rather deadpan. He has to admit that he didn't see himself surviving an actual arena. He isn't sure who would be the one to eliminate him or kill him, a rather garish idea to think of, but compared to some of the fighters he saw, let alone the arena they'd be in, he is counting himself out of it. When the bodies started dropping just hours ago - Anahita and Ciphra's screams echo in his head - Rodric freezes, but not out of fright. He freezes due to thinking it could be his time to go, this might be how it ends. Not with a sword in his stomach or one of Vivian's arrows slitting his throat with her glaring at him from on high, but his throat exploding and his jaw flying in the air. But then, nothing happens... he's still alive, and Aris decides to judo chop him in the head.

"No," Bonnie shakes her head, and the sweet tinge comes back to her voice. "The Games were over before they even started," the president picks her up her mug of coffee and takes a long sip. He watches her throat bob with the motions, and realizes how parched he is, but something also strikes him that he won't be fed and given water if he politely requests it. "You're now part of a war that an Avox wants to engage in, and who am I to refuse?" she smiles into the mug as she takes another sip. "He's decided to make the tributes pawns, and whatever he does, I'll do."

"So a hostage?"

"A pawn, Mr. Oxford," Bonnie drums him on the nose. "And if you behave and cooperate, we won't change that situation, I promise you."

His entire body is shaking in alarm and terror, and he looks over, back at Amaris and Aris, and his heart sinks into his chest as Amaris's eyebrows rise and her eyes widen.

Uh-oh. That can't be good.

"Madam President?" Amaris asks, her voice carrying in the empty hall.

Bonnie perks her head up, getting to her feet, taking the coffee cup with her. Rodric strains to hear the conversation that starts happening, everyone's attentions starting to be dragged towards the screens. He cranes his neck, not getting the best picture, until a monitor right by him on the far side of the wall comes to life, displaying jagged waves of static that float haphazardly in the negative space. "Yes, Soldier O'Hara?" she asks, and Rodric's attention is pulled back to them.

"We've got a squadron of fighters approaching the outer rim of the city. Did you call back any Peacekeeper blocks?" the female from Six questions, and Aris standing next to her sneers, and Rodric swears he can hear a low growl emitting from his throat as he clenches on the end table. Rodric realizes what's different with him; he's not dressed in that black and red training outfit. Aris Lindel, the lucky, smug ass bastard, is dressed finely in a Peacekeeper uniform, but his is not the typical white color that swamps the entire room, but a gray tone, a subdued storm cloud color, and shit, he looks _good. _

"_No, no, he doesn't," _Rodric tells himself angrily. "_We are not falling in love with the enemy or thinking they're attractive here._"

"No, we didn't," Bonnie confirms, and the president sets her coffee mug down. "This must be another one of Rennie's games..." she whispers, eyes searching the monitors. "What's he playing at here?"

The time on the edge of the displaying screen reads as _9:35 A.M, _and Rodric swallows heavily. He's been asleep for at least six hours or so, and who knows what else has happened in that time frame. Also along the wall, on another monitor, are eighteen faces, and he sees his own staring back at him, and next to the three columns of six is another singular column of six, but a gigantic X placed over the pictures, which have been washed out of color. _The dead tributes. _Jules, Tach, Magdalena, Zola, Roanoke, and Audhild, faces and portraits used to be the ones shown in the anthem, dead. Then that must mean the other fifteen, the ones not in the room, are alive. A wave of relief floods through him, seeing that Vivian is still there. He doesn't know how to feel about her - so far the feeling has settled into a strong dislike, if he must be honest - but he doesn't want her dead, not if there's a war being waged outside. She'd fight in it, for sure.

On the screen, however, must be action, as Bonnie starting to swear and pace around the room, the occupants starting to look at her, Amaris's face the most displeased out of them, and Aris has yet to unclench his hands from the bars lining the table the two of them are standing at. Rodric squints at the screen, and sure enough, he sees it; a wave of hovercraft heading directly into the outer rim of the city, in which there is an airstrip for them to land. He can see, just peaking ahead of all the others, as a swell of pride floods his chest and builds a lump in his throat, a golden emblazoned _10 _on the side. He sees it elsewhere too, and there's _7, 9, 8, 10, 12..._ he sees every single district number on at least one of the hovercraft, before they land, but all he can think about is the numbers, as Bonnie is turning around and whirling all about, screaming orders, _screaming something _at the very least.

One of the hovercrafts land, the ramp being lowered to the ground, occupants spilling out. Though the cameras are far away, a technician sitting down at one of the seats along the opposite end of the room shifts to a different camera at that exact landing pad, as Bonnie demands it. Rodric tries scooting closer to the screen, held back once more by the handcuff, he swearing and trying to yank it free. Multiple groups of people began exiting the aircraft, and a feeling of elation soars in his heart. _These people are armed, and they're not Peacekeepers! _However, something makes him gasp when a familiar wave of blonde hair that is starting to gray, and a very familiar balding head, said head belonging to a man wearing a jacket with a _very recognizable _crest of a family ranch on the lapel of the jacket.

"Dad?" Rodric shouts, but he doesn't care; it's not like they can hear him. "Mom?"

"Wait a minute..." Amaris says, over in her section of the room, as Bonnie pauses in mid-pace, eyes scanning the screens. "I recognize some of them," and she starts pointing. "That's Jason Lacey's father, the mayor from Nine; he did say he's the son of the mayor after all," and she points to another screen, "I recognize that family as one in Six who are a bit rich..." the girl's face goes pale. "Is- is this..."

"It's an army," the president pinches the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes, nostrils flaring. "Rennie brought an army to the Capitol... and he did it right under my nose."

Rodric is only half paying attention to the conversation, his gaze firmly kept on the screen in front of him. His mother had mentioned something about the... about the 'phoenix rising again'. Is- is this it? The Phoenix? A group- he almost is about to burst into tears when there's a sudden pain digging in the back of his chest, and another pain under his chin. He forces his eyes to follow the sudden strong grip of his head being forcibly turned, and he's staring right back at Bonnie Rodney's furious glare, her diamond eyes burning in frustration, the fringes of her eyes wide and volcanic, and he can hear her breathing. Her fingernails were digging into his chin, and a Peacekeeper had followed her and struck him in the back, she crouching down in front of him, mouth setting itself into a firm line slowly.

"_My mother would make mincemeat of you," _Rodric thinks to himself, and he has to resist the urge to smile.

"Screw the idea of being a pawn, Mr. Oxford," Bonnie tells him, and the sweetness in her voice is gone, a cherry daiquiri replaced with the bitterness and venomous bite of a vodka stinger; he's right, the venom always finds a way to show its ugly face. "Welcome to being a hostage."

* * *

**_Sage Dagoba: District Seven Female P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

The entire compound is buzzing and alive, and frankly, so is she. Breakfast is a few apples, for apparently their newfound leader Rennie Davis had been saving the good food for when the world would come crashing down, taking to task old cans of refried beans and just an absolute fortress of bean cans, but now there's a legitimate reason to keep everyone well fed, and everyone _alive. _There are no assigned beds, so to speak, but Sage has Ciphra sleep next to her, with Bloom just a bed over, and she loses track of the boys, and also doesn't frankly care where Seth goes, whether that be to hell or wherever that might be. Waking up in the morning has her facing a grime coated ceiling of moss and some sort of waterlogged smell. She's going to make her bed when Bloom bursts in to the female quarters, almost out of breath, her face lit up and ecstatic.

"Sage!" Bloom shouts at her, scaring her half to death.

"What?" the girl from Seven yells out in fright, hands tossing her bedspread in the air, before it bounds down to the ground. She picks it back up, blowing a tuff of auburn hair out of her eyes, looking over at the other tribute. "Bloom, what is it?"

"You gotta come see the monitors!" the District Twelve girl has her hair long and down by her sides, a shimmering and beautiful face with her olive skin tone glimmering under the halcyon lights. Bloom is bouncing up and down on her heels, a hummingbird who has consumed too much nectar, Sage's eyes starting to hurt as she tries to follow her movements. Ciphra is already up, having gotten up hours earlier for Criston, the victor from District 6, needs to speak with her on some matter of importance, but as to what it is, she isn't sure. "You won't believe what's happened!"

"What, what?" Sage drops the rolled up bed sheet on the plain mattress, leeching away from it, and Bloom dashes down the hall at lightning speed.

She follows her down the corridor, it not much larger than to fit two people standing shoulder to shoulder, and that is probably generous. There are multiple levels to the base, only about four, however, and the only ways down to the subsections are these unsafe looking ladders that Sage figures haven't been touched in probably thirty to fifty years, given the state of them. The first floor holds the mainframe, or as that Capitolite, their Master of Ceremonies claims, _Command, _and the living facilities. The second floor houses the dining area and extra rooms for sleeping should there be an overflow. The third floor contains the armory and training quarters, which spike a flood of appreciation in Sage's veins... she could swing an axe at something right about now and behead it cleanly. The fourth floor holds the prison cells, and that is most likely where Seth is, but she could care less about him.

Sage bursts through the double set of glass doors back into Command, slightly out of breath, as she hasn't run like that since the Gauntlet in the Training Center, but she only gets a fourth of the way through before a billy club into her ribs ends the dream of being a champion for that, but Satin Spinel has her covered. She stops still just in the entranceway, realizing that everyone is up before her, as the tributes are still in their training uniforms with their district numbers on their back, and she recognizes the back of everyone's heads from the victors and mentors she met last night. Everyone's attention is on the screens, the monitors all lit up, but that's not what has her puzzled while she does a head count. Where is... where is their fearless leader?

He's off to the side, standing against the command table itself, holograms all lit up, but his face is kept in a still smirk. Sage frowns again, but steps up to the main group to look at the screens. It is the western front of the city, marked by their anti-air craft guns and weapons; Sage recalls seeing them when the train is pulling into the tunnel for the station, as Roanoke points them out. _Roanoke... _she bites down on her cheek, hard. She won't think of him yet, not _yet, _and maybe not ever. Filled in every little corner of the screens are hovercrafts, district hovercrafts from the look of it by their golden numbers painted on the sides of the wings. Would this be the president calling back Peacekeepers from all over Panem? "_Good,_" Sage hisses through gritted teeth, fingers tightening into a cylindrical shape as if she could feel the hilt of an axe placed there already. "_I'll have an axe for anyone who wants a challenge._"

However, that anger recedes into surprise when the first few hovercrafts land, the group silent as they watch the events play out in front of them, and the members that step out of said hovercraft are... not Peacekeepers? Sage steps back some, and there's a murmur of dissent that ripples through everyone.

"Wait a minute," Ciphra points out, tilting her head to the side some. "Those- those aren't Peacekeepers..."

There are at least fifty hovercrafts that have started to land, and it is Vanya that leans forward, getting on the railing, peering at the screens with his eyebrows furrowed. He's staring at a District 9 hovercraft, detailed by the number, and his eyebrows raise up shortly after. "That's Jason's father, the mayor," the ballet dancer looks back at the group. "I've performed for them before; I'd recognize him anywhere. He is the mayor's son, right?"

Sage nods, remembering the interview. What- why are all of these people here? Everyone disperses away from the screens, but now all of their attention is on Rennie, the avox - he slightly gives her the creeps, but he won't hear her saying that - who has his head tipped back in silent laughter, a gleeful smile gracing his features. Pollux moves through everyone, getting close to him. "Rennie? What's going on? What did _you do?" _There's a pointed edge in the interviewer's voice, and Sage surveys the room; no one's facial expressions are looking very happy about what is on screen, but she isn't sure if that is due to genuine worry or just being concerned.

Rennie latches onto the tablet next to him, fingers typing away at the keys like mad. "_It's an army,"_ and any hushed voices are silenced then, everyone's gazes glued to the screen. "_Specifically, our army." _

"Rennie, how is that possible?" it is Kevia Janelle, the blonde victor from One, who asks that. Sage notices that her fingers are manicured, she rolling her eyes. Even in a warzone and a crisis, the elite still find ways to pamper themselves.

Sage looks at the screens again, as the adults all start to talk, while the five tributes seem to clump together. Ciphra, Cambric, and Vanya will all know what she is going through; they'll understand her pain and absorb her screams as their own while they watch their district partners bleed out to death. Seeing Roanoke die like that... she knows and expects that he, being thirteen and all, wouldn't exactly be a frontrunner for the Games, but this is a torture. She expects his passing to be one in the middle of the night, or maybe even in the bloodbath when she _isn't_ looking, not when it is right in front of her face, and as his body slides down the wall, the blood stain is still there, and his body is quivering from the hole in his throat. She moves closer to Ciphra, grabbing her by the hand. The other girl looks up at her, but doesn't say anything, and keeps holding onto her hand. The grown ups are talking loud enough for them to all hear.

"It feels like I'm in a dream," says Hale Cornerstone, her voice mystified. "Pinch me, Hector."

"_Pollux, you were so concerned about why I was posting out flyers with our names on them. Remember?"_

"Remember?" Pollux's tone is scathing, furious almost. "Yeah, I remember; you got a lot of people killed for that yesterday."

The avox shakes his head, blonde waves passing back and forth atop his skull, a back and forth pattern like leaves blowing in the wind. "_I needed us to get caught." _

"But, why?" voices Valencia Shale, and Sage realizes that despite them being the same age, and she also being the same age as the rest of them, she looks so much older. She looks weathered, beaten down in the face, worry lines etched into her forehead, and she is having a hard time maintaining eye contact.

"A diversion..." Criston Pellock whispers, pushing up on his glasses, dark hair glowing a blueberry sheen with the hologram passing over his face. "You'd make Bonnie and the entire administration focused on us... and make them blind to all else that'd move..."

Lance Viel nods along with the statement. "And when it came down to the confrontation, you had Kevia get Hale and Hector to distract Lazarus and Constantine, and with Bonnie being worried about us, she wouldn't notice-"

"_She wouldn't notice her entire hovercraft fleet gone,_" Rennie types out the remainder of the sentence on his tablet, smiling widely. "_I did all of this for a reason, guys. We have an army now," _Sage smiles with him, excitement creeping up in her throat. "_And we're going to use it." _

That is something that happens half an hour ago, and fifteen minutes ago is when Sage devours the apples for breakfast, but she now finds herself down on the third floor, in the armory, surrounded by victors who look like they have no idea what they're doing, and Cambric, who looks a bit more confident in himself, but not as much. The army from the districts are waiting for Rennie's signal to surge into the city, just hanging out on the outskirts, where surely Bonnie and her team have noticed their presence. Fifty hovercraft leaving in the dark, under the president's nose as she frets and worries about unseen shadows in the dark, her team focused on the rats scurrying underneath their shoes. The hovercraft all arrived in their respective district around two in the morning, when everyone is asleep, before landing down, taking the teams and people they'd need, and flying all the way back. Flying to join the Phoenix's team. She's now bouncing up and down on her heels, Bloom's excitement bleeding and meshing into her own. The victors are at the weapons rack lined on the walls, but Sage frowns looking at them, as they look like the ones in the training center.

"That's because they are," Hale says, Sage not realizing she had spoken aloud. The victor passes her, grabbing a sword off of the wall. The girl from Seven notices a few guns lining the walls too, but no one is reaching for them yet.

"They'd make too much noise," Valencia pipes up, and Sage realizes that she had just spoken out loud with that one as well. "Rennie says the base isn't a discovered location yet, and we want to keep it that way. We make too much noise, someone is bound to hear us." She is also holding onto a sword, and it looks eerily familiar, before it strikes her that this is the same weapon the victor had used in the arena, a long beast of singing steel... Sage is jealous, the sword is wonderful. She doesn't get to ask how the victor has it now, as Cambric drops an axe into her hands.

"I saw you work with axes in the center," he says, smiling, and he's picked a knife up for himself. "I imagine you'd want one with us in battle," he pauses in mid-sentence, as Sage's gaze has fallen down towards the weapons, the _actual weapons. _"I don't know if we'll be able to get to use them, Sage. I'd like to, too, trust me," Cambric smiles, but his smile is more hollow this time around. She has no need or feel to question why that is, the smile speaks for itself. While the two of them stand together, in their bubbles, the victors were starting to fan out, per Rennie Davis's orders that they work at the old grind once more.

And weren't they something to behold...

Hale Cornerstone rushes a dummy with her own blade, beheading it in a quick motion. Lance's arms bulk underneath his fading shirt, a spear vaulting out of his hand and down the range. Kevia has snatched up a pair of knives off the wall, dainty little blades shining like Panemian coins under the lights, but she doesn't throw them; the woman is a whirling dervish of blonde hair and steel, skewering a dummy to pieces. Hector Merviere is not as strong in his own weapon choice, preferring a piece of rope that he lassos around a dummy, tugging it to him, but then there's a blade appearing in his hand that he catches from up high, slicing the dummy across the throat. However, as impressive as all of it is in front of him, it is nothing compared to Sage seeing Valencia Shale fight. Although the dummies don't attack, because they _can't, _that is not stopping the victor.

She's moving as if the dummies _are _attacking her. Valencia is a sea of black rage, her sword moving through the air as if it is invisible, slicing the targets into blue ribbons that fall to her feet. The hilt of the sword never seems to leave her hand, but the victor is moving the blade as if it is levitating off of her palm rather than being firmly in her grip. Valencia jumps over one of the dummies, moving her sword in a silver arc that slices the back of it as she falls, before stabbing forward with it into the chest of another. Sage wants to clap as she watches the display of fighting form in front of her, but instead a lump fills in her chest. These people in front of her, they were trained killers at this point, and for the Careers, they were still _Careers... _training other kids her age to kill people just like her. It is no different than when watching Cyril, Satin, Aris, Maren, or Jules plow their way through training.

There's a free space however, a lane left untouched, as Cambric approaches Hale timidly, wanting some advice on using the weapon, for it hadn't been something he generally focused on during training. Sage grips the leather of the hilt of the axe in her hand a bit tighter, closing her eyes, the light conversation of the rather close spaced room flooding her senses.

"Lance..." Kevia's voice moves in a drawl. "Remember that message you left me a year ago?" Sage shakes her head, frowning, closing her eyes. She needs to focus.

"Message? What message?" Lance responds, somewhere off to Sage's right, but she can't quite tell.

"You know the one," the female victor continues, the cadence in her voice mockful. "It was the night you were shitfaced drunk and stole a sheep from Emmet's backyard. 'I'm not just saying this because I'm drunk, but-'"

"No, I don't know it," he quickly interrupts her.

Instead of focusing on the conversation, with her eyes closed, all Sage can see is Roanoke. His grinning, smiling face. The face he makes when he asks her to sing him a song on the train, humming along to the iconic work ballad that every child in Seven knows. His smile when she makes the first near bulls-eye with her axe throw... and the grin on his face during her interview, as he's rooting for her, but she has no idea why. To the face of heartbreak and the tears that well in his eyes when she tells him they can't be allies, because she doesn't need dead weight holding her down, and if he isn't capable of facing the facts, she'll break it to him. Gone. All of that is gone.

Because a blonde witch decided to play God.

Sage opens her eyes with a ferocity she has never felt before, takes a step back from the placemat, and the others look at her, she starting to steal the attention of the room. The girl from Seven races forward, and the axe flies from her hand, soaring down the pathway, directly into the head of the dummy. Oh, yeah, she's focused.

"That woman is going down..." Sage tells herself, through her heavy breathing.

She's got a blade for her, and for anyone who will try to get in her way.

* * *

**_Mirek Bosco: District 12 Male P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

His hands have been incapable of stopping from shaking ever since he hears that man, Lance Viel's voice, scream out a frightened warning, and the roof explodes in a blinding wave of sulfur and fire. The RPGs kept coming, but everyone kept leaving. He has no idea why he tries to save Sophiana, but all he can hear in his head is Bloom's voice, her voice lit up and on fire, telling him to stand up, to stand up and _fight, _and it is the girl from Five's facial expressions, she terrified out of her mind, that propel him into action. Mirek never makes it, though, as the roof caves in then, and Sophiana is out of her grasp, and if he doesn't escape into the night, he'll be dead just like the six bodies lying in the corner. He catches a wave of Satin's blonde hair vanish elsewhere, around a corner, but there's so much dust in the air and he can't breathe or see.

Mirek collapses up against a park bench for the time being, when the sky is still dark, and a faint plume of dust and smoke rises from the crater where the training center once stood. There's nowhere for him to go, but he knows he cannot stay curled up outside and in the open, let alone against a park bench. He only has a faint idea what will happen if he's caught. Mirek looks down at his shirt, cursing to himself, as he realizes he's wearing his tribute uniform. Gee, there's not a single person in the Capitol who won't recognize him now, with what he's got on, no way, certainly. He considers taking it off, just for a second, about to throw it away in the garbage can next to him, when he stops. Where would there be another shirt in his size just lying about? Does he actually want to go around the city shirtless, trying to escape from a warzone? If what the two victors had said is to be true, then that means nowhere is safe for him to hide; not out in the middle of the streets or in a building.

He sighs, running a hand through his hair, it now being morning, he having found a bench up against a shop that said the building would be closed on Sundays, it being Sunday when the sun were to come up, so no one would find him or disturb him. Mirek wanders for what feels like hours when he finds it, as far away from the wretched prison as he could get, it still smoldering to the star ways. He takes his paths from the shadows, darting in between houses and skyscrapers and buildings, the night shrouding him in darkness, in an already dark outfit, on the backed tone of his dark skin color... he's walking invisible at night, but he has no idea where he's going, or what he's trying to accomplish. He remembers garbled words about some sort of base _somewhere, _but does he even want to go? Would he want to?

Bloom had gone with them, Mirek is certain of that. Should he follow her? He sits upright, not due to the thought, however, one hand touching around the back of the bench, it now beautiful and sunny outside, and he can no longer smell the scent of smoke on the air. He picks up the lead pipe he had found lying up against a wall, taking it for self defense. The days he's spent in the mines haven't been for just show and tell; it is his life force, and he will swing any sort of object to the death if need be. Mirek wipes at his forehead, glistening sweat droplets sliding with the motion, and he gets to his feet, sliding off of the bench, feet touching solid pavement. He's not dead, and nothing else has happened that he's aware of, with there being that tracker in his neck. His throat is no longer humming, as Mirek swears that after the six initial explosions, that his skin felt like it contained a buzz, a constant pressure rising and falling, but it's gone now... he figures that sort of terror is over, for now at the very least.

Knowing that, however, does nothing for him, for he still doesn't have a plan. He looks around at the skyscrapers and the gardens and the fountains, his spot that he had fallen asleep at being on a hill, it having a high rise view over the city. It is a massive and gorgeous place, he cannot lie, and whoever had designed it went to a lot of trouble with it, but he can see past the shimmer and the sparkle, to see the mendacity of it all, the leeching feel that the Capitol has on his skin. What is it that Bloom had said to him, or rather, aloud? He remembers looking at the city from the train, his breath stolen away by the beautiful vista out in front of him, and her comment that sends shivers up his spine does not go unnoticed any longer... what had it been?

"I'm going to burn it all down..." he whispers, and he feels a bit of her strength in him. He might be strong, sure, Mirek figures that he is and numbers don't lie, but he's found her to be much stronger than he is. To stand up for what she believes in, to tango with the devil and dance away unscathed without a burn mark or a circle of bruises at her throat. She is everything he isn't, when he thinks about it, down to the very core of the problem, that she stands taller than he, the shadow she casts is larger than his, and she's unrelenting about making it a known fact. Telling the Careers what she thought about the world, just three days ago, felt like the right thing to do... to watch the seeds of terror get sewn into his district partner's brain when Aris comes walking up to them like an idiot with that stupid grin on his face... yet she doesn't _back down. _

Mirek shakes his head, frowning, stepping forward, his right hand tightening around the pipe. There it is again... that _sound. _It is a sound that causes Mirek to wake up, a loud and booming voice that can only come from some sort of modulator, and not only does it sound loud, it sounds close. The boy from Twelve inches his way around the side of the building, gets two inches out into the sunlight, and scurries back behind the cover. Found the source of the noise, he sure did. A Peacekeeper patrol, it being just two of them, but Peacekeepers all the same in their white uniforms, gloved hands holding onto their assault rifles, and they're stopped just about fifteen to twenty feet away from him, at another doorway. The Peacekeeper in the lead, the one who's voice he's hearing, the voice blocked by the helmet, constantly keeps pointing his weapon at someone else that Mirek cannot see, and the body language from how the suit seems to tighten in his movements speak to threats.

He's seen that before. In Twelve, if a Peacekeeper did that, it meant best to give up... you were going to be shot. That means the man is about to lash out, and perhaps in a way he will regret. Mirek looks around the other side of the building, which seems to be clear. It might be too bright and early for the citizens of the Capitol to really start milling around, but it doesn't mean he needs to keep standing near that bench any longer, cause sooner than later those Peacekeepers were going to head his way, and maybe do something they'd regret. "_Or maybe something I'll regret..._" Mirek thinks to himself, darkly, but he lifts the pipe up higher, inching just a bit closer to hear the conversation more.

"P- please... don't..." a frail voice pleads, Mirek's eyebrows lifting up in surprise. The voice sounds feminine, but it also sounds a bit weak, as if the person's vitality is seeping away from them.

"I've asked you five times and you still won't answer me," the man growls, in a gruff tone, and he advances some into the doorway, a finger going to the trigger. "Why are you hoarding food in your pantry? Laws state that there is to be no external rationing... you're prepping for something! Are you hiding anyone in your basement? Any rebels we need to know about?"

"I swear, I've never seen those cans you're talking about in my life, I-" the other voice tries to explain.

"I've had enough of you," the Peacekeeper hisses, and he raises his weapon, striking downwards with it in a left swooping motion. Mirek hears a faint cry of agony, and then the body of the person he's speaking to spills out into the street, he having to suppress the croak of surprise that rises in his throat. The man is yelling at an elderly woman, her skin dark and lustrous like his, and the woman must've been wearing a wig, for an entire head of silver hair falls off and scatters onto the street. The feeble woman crawls forward to the wig, bony hands reaching for it, Mirek raising an eyebrow. The woman, despite living in the Capitol, looks like she hasn't eaten a day in her life, and she's being bullied by Peacekeepers... a shop owner, perhaps?

However, as Mirek looks closer, a dark storm begins to brew under his skin, he feeling churned waters begin to slosh about in the pit of his stomach. Although that woman is most definitely not her, he can see his mother in her, a woman almost in her fifties, and life's exhaustion starting to sink into her bones. His mother has toiled and worked for years, and it is what Mirek is doing now, trying to work so his family can survive, while his sister shakes in trepidation and fear from the mines and from the Peacekeeper guns... from _all of it._ If that were his mother being beaten and on the ground trying to crawl towards her belongings, he wouldn't hesitate; he'd charge the son of a bitch for all the anger he could exert in his body. He wants to look away, as the Peacekeeper that struck her steps closer to her, but he does not help the woman up; he keeps the sight of his gun on her.

"_Are you thinking of running?"_ he hears Bloom's voice in his head, taunting him, and he can picture her smirking while she does it too.

"_No, of course not."_

_"You're thinking about it, Mirek. You can't lie to me."_

_"Bloom, I swear-"_

_"He's going to shoot her. I can feel it. You can feel it," _and it is as if she is right there with him, pressing a hand against his face. "_Don't try to run from your destiny. This is your destiny." _

"This is my destiny..." Mirek whispers to himself, aloud, and he doesn't need to think about anything other than getting them away from that woman.

He charges out of the shadows and into the light, yelling, the iron pipe raised above his head. Both Peacekeepers and the elderly woman look in his direction, but by that point Mirek is upon them. The boy from Twelve slams into the body of the Peacekeeper who had his gun raised, for the other weapon is strung along the other Peacekeeper's shoulder. The man Mirek hits, as well as himself, collapse onto the sidewalk, the gun falling away from them, and Mirek drops his pipe, hearing it roll away from him. The elderly woman is screaming something, and the other Peacekeeper stands frozen, almost in shock, taking off the helmet, looking back and forth at the pipe that is rolling away, and the tribute in front of him wailing on his comrade.

Mirek rips off the man's helmet, the fall having dazed the brutal Peacekeeper, and he's met with a pale face filled to the brim with hatred, eyes burning, but they're lost in a daze for a moment. He doesn't see that, however, the daze, but a scourge upon his homeland, a scourge on his history. It is these people that killed his father, the ones who hung him and his feet would trail soft lines in the dirt from where the bodies blew in the trees, generally men of other ethnicities than white, strange fruit blowing in the District Twelve autumn breeze. Mirek punches the man square in the face, a spurt of blood getting on his left cheek, as he breaks the man's nose, and his fists keep hailing down, _down, down, down. _The man is trying to fight back, but Mirek has turned the pale canvas into a Picasso of blood and spit and phlegm and more blood, while Mirek screams at the man, swearing, yelling, and the elderly woman he's saved has rushed back into her shop, locking the door.

Somehow the man has yet to pass out, and Mirek is punching other spots on the body now, his fist connecting with the Peacekeeper's stomach while he's dressed in that stupid turtle show, and the hit man vomits up blood, it coating the boy's right shoulder. He's about to land another punch to the man's face, which perhaps could kill him for good, when he feels a sudden pain in the back of the head. He's thrown off of the Peacekeeper, and he sees the bright blue expanse of sky, stars swimming in his vision. The other Peacekeeper stands above him, face a myriad of emotions, but the one Mirek sees the most is loss, a loss of the situation. The man drops the lead pipe he had used to hit Mirek in the back of the head with onto the ground, it clattering away from him.

Anyone else would probably be shot, for trying to murder a Peacekeeper. Anyone else would be left tied up and gagged to roast in the hot sun, or quartered off and disassembled by four galloping horses running in the cardinal directions on a compass. It is the tribute number of _12 _on the back of his shirt, in the same color as the white thugs uniform that gives it away. They won't execute tributes, protected Capitol property, as the Madam President Rodney explains. _What a crock of bullshit._

The last thing Mirek can remember is the other Peacekeeper, the one he began to brutally strike, slowly, ever so slowly, get to his feet, a look of pure rage on his face, and then the man's boot connecting with his skull, and the lights dimming out after that as he fell into unconsciousness.

* * *

**_Vanya Vasiliev: District 11 Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

"This is it?" Vanya asks, trying to hide the disbelief in his voice.

"This is it, yes," Pollux confirms, nodding his head, but Vanya can see a bit of mockery hiding in the interviewer's eyes.

While Sage and Cambric were given permission to go train with the victors down below, Vanya finds himself _not _hanging out with them, as much as he'd like to. Ciphra and Bloom are ushered into a new room with Criston Pellock, the victor from Six smiling at them with a huge grin on his face, Vanya about to go and follow when the Master of Ceremonies places his hand on his shoulder. It stops the ballet dancer in his tracks, any form of protest dying within seconds, a babble about to come free from his lips, but there's a sternness in Pollux's gaze that he hasn't seen before, and he's known him fairly well over the years. Vanya's no stranger to talking in front of large crowds, having interviews in the Capitol about twice a year for three years straight ever since joining the Capitole Exquisitue Ballete company, adoring fans in that studio wanting to know what it is like being a superstar from a district where there are generally no superstars.

"_District Eleven is full of them," __Vanya argues, once, on camera, and Pollux has a crippling frown on his face, as if this is an impossibility. He is not about to go and trash his own district. What kind of idiot would do that?_

Having the gift of the gab seems to help him, he figures, as to why the Phoenix - "_Rennie Davis,_" his mind corrects him. "_He has a name, not just a symbol._" - would want him to be the one to gather up everyone in the training center, but it is due to the fact that he has spoken to crowds before, and there are hints of him not being a Capitol lackey, that the job is thrust upon him. Among several others.

Given his current situation, as Vanya looks out over the crowd in front of him. He has no idea who any of these faces are, let alone _who _the people are, but it doesn't matter, he figures. Pollux pushes him down several corridors, it feeling like the gentlemen were walking for hours, until he's uprooted into the sunlight into a room. The room isn't extremely, _extremely _large, and certainly not as large as the amphitheater in which the interviews are held, but Vanya can feel his throat closing up... the people's faces are a lot closer to him this time, and he can see the judgement in their eyes. In the studio with Pollux, it is him and a camera; that is easy enough. In the amphitheater, the lights drown out whatever faces he might be able to see, and with him blowing the interview over Zola's engagement ring - a twinge of pain flashes in his chest, Vanya rubbing at the spot subconsciously - but this... this is a whole other ballgame.

"What am I, exactly?" Vanya asks, leaning over and whispering into Pollux's ear.

"Our Capitol spokesperson," the man replies cheerfully, and then he holds his hands out to the gathered audience. "These men and women here heard about our rebellion and were thinking of joining... but they don't want to hear it from us Capitol folk why they should join. They need a youthful voice."

"A youthful voice?"

"A youthful voice."

The District Eleven male's eyes search the room again, into the corners. It is a building in disarray, from the outside at the very least, with cobwebs in the pockets where the sun does not fall, weathered gray bricks leading to a splintered bench and a sign hanging off of the door frame just barely holding on. However, on the inside, as Pollux tells him on the walk over, is that it used to be a nightclub of some kind, before former president Calhoun Rodney shuts it down - _"Former,"_ Vanya noes in his head, "_Former president,_" - and from the way there's a blurring emotion shining in the interviewer's eyes, Vanya has a good idea what the nightclub would be used for, a sudden shiver encompassing his body. The outside, dejected and ruined, but the inside, an opulent palace that only extends about the length of his bedroom in the tribute center, with golden columns stretching to the ceiling, a carpet glimmering of rubies and sapphires pressed into the ground, and the beleaguered faces that are looking back at him, just as extravagant as possible.

Vanya locks eyes with a woman sitting in the front, her face powdered to oblivion, lips a bright and beautiful crimson red - Zola's face flashes in front of him for a second, that same color spewing from his throat, and he tenses up against a column - and pearlish, almost white colored eyes staring back at him. However, he doesn't expect to see the fear that is hiding in the woman's eyes, rather than some sort of disgust that he expects, for being a tribute. "Because I'm one of them..." he says aloud, with a stunning clarity in his voice, and then he furrows his eyebrows together. The Capitol won't listen to one of them any longer who betrayed the trust - Pollux - but they'll listen to him. Zola deserves it. He digs his right hand into his right pocket of the outfit he got dressed in, a suave white and black outfit that might've been pulled from Pollux's wardrobe.

It is still there, he sighs to himself with a great heave, as his fingers brush up against the smooth, curved surface of her ring. He'll hold onto until he dies, as he owes her that much, especially after slapping him in the face with a basket. Her last memory, her last moment, is looking at him with trepidation and terror in her eyes, before her head is thrust back, and her neck spewing the same crimson lipstick as the woman in the front row... and then her body, crushed by the collapsing building. Vanya grits his teeth together, keeping his gaze steady and directly on the crowd, but he keeps his main focus on the woman with the powdered face, and he pulls his hand out of his pocket. Vanya tightens his grip on the ring, feeling her voice wash over him, and he can hear the strength of Zola's soul up until her last moments coursing through him.

"You want me to get them motivated?" he asks, almost in a hissing sort of tone.

"That's the plan," Pollux reiterates, pinching the bridge of his nose, lapsing into the back corner of the room, where the hidden door is, the one the two of them had come out of with everyone already gathered in front of them.

The tribute grinds his teeth together some, his left hand curling into a fist as well, and without looking at the interviewer for guidance, "Then watch me."

_In and out, _is the word of advice that Rennie gives them before they leave, his face dead serious, unlike the smiles Vanya had seen earlier in the morning when the hovercrafts from all the districts were on the horizon. Their forces were currently encamped just on the outskirts of the city, having disabled the security measures of the outer perimeter when they landed, but it would only be a matter of time before Bonnie would mobilize her Peacekeeper force to brutalize the attackers. Speaking of Peacekeepers, Vanya's eyes keep on flitting over to the one standing in the corner, their protective guard so-to-speak, standing there immobile, helmet off, and his hand encircled around the gun. If Rennie's words are to be believed, there are dissenters in the Capitol who have joined them, people on route to start enacting the late Calhoun's plan of ending the Hunger Games, and that means bleeding in a rebellion.

Vanya hates bleeding, the bleeding that comes from cracked sores on his feet, to blisters on his hands, to the taint of copper that coats his tongue when a disgruntled partner punches him in the face.

"Thank you all for being here," he starts, a fire pouring into his stomach. "I can imagine that this might seem very confusing to you," Vanya swallows heavily. There isn't any script to be had, by which Pollux laughs at him in the face for asking. All improv, Vanya supposes. Dance improv is not the same thing as impromptu speaking, but he asked to help, and he knows he can't fight... speaking is the next best thing, and he isn't in any point to argue. Had he not left with Lance and Valencia at their requests, he'd be buried ten feet deep underneath a rubble pile, trying to reach Zola's corpse. "But trust me, it's confusing for me too..." he runs a hand through his hair, onyx curls entangling around his fingers. "I'm sure you all recognize me; I'm Vanya Vasiliev, the District Eleven male tribute for the 101st Hunger Games, and I'm a ballet dancer who has probably performed for all of you." Blinking faces look back at him, faces that almost seem to be looking so disinterested that they were somewhere else.

"You may have heard, had any of you seen the president's announcement around 2 AM about there being an insurgence here in the Capitol called _The Phoenix..._ she is telling the truth, members of it are standing in front of you now," and that has a few highbrows raise, a feeling of elation soaring in Vanya's heart. Is he getting to them? Is he finally getting to them? "Led by Rennie Davis and Pollux Aetos, your famous interviewer, they are leading an insurrection against the President... and against the Hunger Games..." Vanya has never been good at lying, it is something that makes him throw up afterwards when he says one. It is their goal, the goal of the victors, the goal of the avox who cannot speak, and it is _Vanya's _goal... hiding it from people trying to see if it is worth it or not means he cannot _not _tell people their mission. He also does not feel like puking onto his shoes, or the deathly-ill looking gentleman in the front row. "As I've been told, the president randomly executed six of us tributes this morning from a remote location via the trackers that have been placed in our throats," Vanya's fingers place themselves on that spot on his neck, and a few of the women, and one gentleman in the room, all take a collective gasp.

"We were killed without warning, without reason, and all of us in our beds sleeping," his stomach churns at that, the first lie, but one cannot hurt every once in awhile, can it? Pollux smirks to himself over in his pocket of the room, Vanya looking back at him, and then over at the crowd again. "And then, after that, she had her Peacekeepers destroy the tribute center, which crushed the six bodies of the tributes who died..." he tightens his fist holding the engagement ring. "One of those lost was my district partner, Zola Taonga," a lump forms in his throat, but Vanya is not going to step down; not now, not yet. "The president is desperate, and will destroy this city and all of your lives without a second thought, just to keep a crown she stole after killing her husband, the previous Head Gamemaker, and framing victors, people who you _adored,_ with those crimes instead," he shakes his head, curls bouncing against the side of his face. "That is no leader willing to fight for you; you're just viewed as expendable meat for her armies, her shields."

Pollux steps up to match him at the front of the stage, it being a raised strip of brick by only about four or five inches, placing a hand on his shoulder. The fire in Vanya's stomach erupts into a magma storm, it washing over his arms and legs. "All we're asking for is your support. Food you can give us that you do not need. Clothing, weaponry," and another deep breath. "There are three tributes running that are unaccounted for: Satin Spinel of District 1, Sophiana Delarosa of District 5, and Mirek Bosco of District 12. If you find one of them, take them into your home, hide them protect them... spare them from a death in the Games," he can feel the tears starting to stream down his face, but his gaze has now turned from the woman who's face is the color of a snowstorm, to a man in the back of the room, who had just slipped in. Vanya looks back at the main bulk of the crowd, not noticing the man by the door digging his hand into his jacket pocket. "We will need every hand we can get if we want to defeat the tyrant sitting in that mansion, who has taken control of your lives..." he smiles, and puts his fist in the air. "Are you with me?"

The crowd roars and screams in delight, clapping, clapping, clapping, but all of a sudden, Vanya is being pulled back by Pollux under the cheering crowd. The noise in the room reaches an uproar, nearly drowning out the sound of gunfire, to then Vanya's earsplitting screech as the bullet connects with his body.

There's a splatter of scarlet, the Peacekeeper in the corner shooting a single round into the man's forehead by the front door, and Vanya thrown down to the floor, and a second bullet striking him as he falls, his scream breaking upon the walls.

* * *

**_Sophiana Delarosa: District 5 Female P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

Any attempt at escape seems futile, as Sophiana's pitiful kicks and hits to the Peacekeeper's arm that is holding her up is like her hitting the side of a mountain. She's trying not to cry, struggling in his grip, nd her shouts are getting weaker and weaker as he hauls her through the streets of the Capitol, a second man in the sentry following close behind, holding onto the piece of rubble that she drops in trying to run away. All Sophiana can remember from before is her screams, the sound of Tach's voice in her head complaining about something in his body hurting, a splash of vermillion that flies in the air, the sizzling sound of smoke in her ear, Mirek calling her name, and then ash, ash, ash, _ash. _It coats her arms, creating constellations of dust and smog in the scars that line her arms as she kicks and pleads and screams and begs.

Escaping into the night, without any shoes on, as Sophiana forgets to grab a pair when Seth and Vanya rouse her from her sleep, she finds herself darting in between alleyways, trying to keep the tremble of her chin down to a minimum, and to keep at dabbing at the tears that spring free from her eyes. Safety is on her mind somewhere in there, but her mind is jumbled mess of papers free floating from the sky as she sees her district partner lunge forward with a knife, trying to stab the victor of the Quarter Quell dead for some reason unknown to her, and now all she can think about is Seth. Where's Seth? Is he okay? Is he dead? Did they kill him? They should kill him; he's never liked her, and she's never liked him, and she has no idea what she's done to warrant such hatred.

Sophiana eventually finds rest up against a dumpster hiding behind a shop, some sort of winery looking thing, but she does not dare break into it. In her running away from the training center as it collapses behind her, she picks a free floating rock that had tumbled free, it not much larger than a knife from end to end, but enough where she can protect herself. She does the idiotic thing of throwing it, Sophiana cursing to herself as it does slow down one of the Peacekeepers when it hits him in the chest, but it doesn't mean the other one, his sentry that is currently holding her arm, has any reason to not run after her. The girl has no idea how she's even caught, when she thinks about it. Her body looks like it could blend in with the shadows, by the amount of dust covered in her hair, or the scratch marks from hitting the sides of buildings that decorate her arms, roadways and maps to a broken Delarosa.

They find her, however, a morning patrol, just before the sun starts to peek over the horizon, and Sophiana scrambles to her feet, feeling the ground churn underneath her as she runs, but the man behind her is faster, scooping her up in his arms. She's always considered herself to be a smaller sized person, but it is almost as if the man is bringing along a simple Christmas package for his kid, if he were to have one, and Sophiana keeps on hitting him, smacking her fists against the sides of his arms, which are scaled due to the armor of his uniform. She tries kicking him in the face, but her body is not that dexterous to do it, and she can feel her body splitting open in pain as she does it. Should the rubble have killed her? Should she have tried to run?

What is it that the victors in the center had said, before everything went to hell in a handbasket? A rebellion underground? Sophiana had a feeling these Peacekeepers were not taking her there.

"Let me go!" she yells at him again, for the fiftieth time, but the man only shakes his head, chuckling somewhat. The visor is pitch black to her when she looks through it, but she's been peering into the darkness her whole life; this is nothing new. She can almost make out a tanned face, a chiseled jaw, and serene blue eyes. Her father's eyes are brown, just like hers, and he'll rot away forever for what he did to her, and her sister, and her mother, and the houses that he burnt down, and the people that he's killed... yet he's the one holding onto her now...? Sophiana tries punching the man harder, smacking onto his elbow with enough force to nearly break her hand. "Gah!" she cries out in pain, bringing her hand to her mouth to suckle on the knuckle that she smacks him with.

"We've got strict orders to get you tributes that we find to a holding cell," the Peacekeeper in the back says. "We've heard that someone else, the guy from Twelve, has been found too."

"_Mirek,_" Sophiana thinks to herself, with a pang, and her heartbeat roars in her head. She tries struggling again, to get out of the man's grip, but it is like iron and he won't let go of her. She finds it eerie that the streets are not bustling with people, as there is not a single soul out and about doing their daily Capitol business, for whatever that would entail. The smoke column that rises in the sky from the collapsed training center has Sophiana looking back at it, expecting it to change colors, or for the building to magically reappear, but there's nothing of the sort happening.

"Stop moving," the Peacekeeper holding her by the arm commands her, crossly, and a blip of fear passes over Sophiana's face. Her father's used that tone before, but the man behind the visor is... no, is his skin dark like hers? Are those his evil eyes staring back at her from on high, to drag her to her room where the belt will come lashing down across her face, or the cigarette to pressed into her thighs and smeared downwards to her ankles? Are they the eyes of a devil far worse than anything her father would ever be? "If you try it again..." the threat hangs in balance, but the other sentry simply scoffs again, and there's the chatter of some other noise on the channel passing between their ear comm pieces.

Thinking fast, Sophiana clamps her mouth down on the Peacekeeper's hand holding her just under the arm. He yells in fright, dropping her, she falling to the ground with a heavy thud. Seth thought he could intimidate her. Pollux, the Master of Ceremonies, believes he can intimidate her. The Head Gamemaker, by giving her a measly _two, _thinks she can humiliate her. Her father, nor this Peacekeeper, they can not humiliate or intimidate her any longer. Fighting back. She needs to fight back. Fighting back is how one overcomes their bullies, and she's an island with storms ranging on all sides with bullies coming from every direction. Sophiana wipes at her mouth with the back of his hand, having torn off a bit of the leather from the glove she bit into.

The Peacekeeper she bit lifts his visor up, and she's met with his face, stark eyes burning hatred back at her, and Sophiana smirks to herself, a smirk she's seen Seth give once or twice... and it seems to work; it might work with him. She spits into his face, hocking a glob of saliva and dust and blood in her mouth directly onto his face, hitting him just above the nose, resting between his eyes. He growls at her, wiping it away, and she's never seen a face more angry in her life, the bravado in her spirit sinking back underneath her skin.

"You _little bitch!" _he roars at her, and Sophiana loses her ability to catch her breath.

That is her father's favorite word to use in the house, when he's around. Only Markus calls her a bitch, and Yolanda has to wipe the tears away from her eyes that stream down her face, milling in the ash. How- _no, that's impossible! _Sophiana looks up and into the eyes of the man that is her father, and the faces constantly swap, between the Peacekeeper and her father who should be in prison. But, no, he's escaped... _hasn't he? _How did he get free? It is supposed to be a life sentence. Unless this is a punishment! Sophiana keeps moving her head back and forth, almost on a swiveling motion, and her eyes are widening, tears are falling free, cause no one else has ever called her a bitch.

"Fuck this..." the Peacekeeper swears under his breath, but Sophiana cannot believe her eyes.

The man's face changes to that of the dark skin tone of her father, to the tanned face of the man she spit at, his eyes passing between that oceanic blue of the smoldered sky, or the ashy brown, but both are filled with a burning rage that she's seen only once before. Her entire body is on fire, Sophiana hugging at her arms, fingers digging into the scorch marks, trying to rip them free, all the while the Peacekeeper sneers at her, and the sentry with him is saying something, something about putting _it _down, what it is, and the other man yelling at him, and it is too much noise.

She clamps her hands down over her ears, but she does not dare close her eyes, terrified of whatever might lurk in the places where she thought she used to be safe.

The Peacekeeper shoots her directly in the head, between the eyes, and unlike in the arena, there's no cannon to mark her demise.

* * *

**18th: Sophiana Delarosa, 16, District 5 Female. Killed in the rebellion via gunshot to the head. Created by Santiago poncini20. Ah, Sophiana, Sophiana, Sophiana... sweetheart, you were pretty much screwed from the get go. Getting to write you has been a treat, but your courage and strength could only push so far before someone's rage would incinerate you. I never had her going very far, whether it be an arena, or in this war, because her mind was too broken from the abuse she suffered as a child into her teenage years, and being in a high stress situation would only make it worse. I really enjoyed getting to write her, however... and she'll be far from the first casualty in this war now that it has begun.**

* * *

_**Tribute List (Boy - Girl)**_

District 1: **Cyril Barther **[_Submitted by thorne98_] / **Satin Spinel **[_Submitted by Mistycharming_]

District 2: **Aris Lindel **[_Submitted by grimbutnotalways_] / **Maren Johnson **[_Submitted by Crashed Ice24_]

District 3: **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 4: **Anahita Cascade **[_Submitted by Reader Castellan_]

District 5: **Seth Cables **[_Submitted by Nemris_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara **[_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 7: **Sage Dagoba **[_Submitted by AlexFalTon_]

District 8: **Cambric Vogel **[_Submitted by dyloccupy_]

District 9: **Jason Lacey **[_Submitted by ilvidis_]

District 10: **Rodric Oxford **[_Submitted by Alexcias_] / **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

District 11: **Vanya Vasiliev **[_Submitted by TheMayflyProject_]

District 12: **Mirek Bosco** [_Submitted by curiousclove_] / **Bloom Estrada **[_Submitted by LordShiro_]

...

**_Capitol Cast of Characters_**

_President of Panem: _**Bonnie Rodney**

_Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: _**Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies: _**Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games: _**Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: _**Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: _**Hale Cornerstone**

_Victor of the 77th Hunger Games: _**Hector Merviere**

_Victor of the 84th Hunger Games: _**Kevia Janelle**

_Head Gamemaker:_ **Constantine Fallorne**

_Head Peacekeeper: _**Lazarus Pietro**

* * *

**Well, folks, there we have it, Chapter #26: Hallways of Darkness, the next chapter for Bombs and Bullets. And for the third time in one single story, this is now the longest chapter I've ever written for a Hunger Games piece - I still have a chapter that is 2.5k longer than this one, but generally my numbers don't reach this high lol - and I am so happy to have it completed, cause we're in the thick of the things. No one is safe, as I've reiterated that before, and there has been plenty of things to happen since then in this piece, I will tell you.**

**This is just a taste of what is to come, and a lot of jumping back and forth from group to group, so I imagine it'll be hard to follow. We are still in Day 1, so to speak, for the rebellion, so those keeping track on your profiles and such of where your tributes are, just keep that in mind. Day 2 will be starting on Chapter 28, Day 3 on Chapter 32, and Day 4 on Chapter 34... and I'll keep my mouth shut on all the other details. What POV was your favorite? Any developments you find shocking? I have so much more left in a short span of twelve chapters to go, so buckle in!**

**I am aiming for the next chapter to not be that long away, actually, haha: Sunday, the 22nd, is the next update I am planning on having, so I hope you're all there. It'll be Chapter #27: War's Plague. Please review; it'd mean the world to me to know what you all are thinking, cause this is also slightly uncharted territory for me too, even though I have written an arc like this is another story that runs similar veins. I love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	27. War's Plague (Phoenix V)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #27: War's Plague. This is a chapter following the Capitol character viewpoints in the next leg of the journey in terms of fighting in or against the Phoenix Rebellion. Last chapter brought the end our poor and precious Sophiana Delarosa from District 5, as well as bridging certain groups of tributes together. As I am sure the world knows, our entire society has been slowed down due to the corona virus, and my schooling is permanently online till the remainder of the semester, which means I should hopefully have a lot more time to type if I don't burn myself out lol. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #27: War's Plague.**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, count your blessings every day, for you do not know when someone will steal them away from you and say you lost them for yourself._

**_Master of Ceremonies Pollux Aetos P.O.V_**

* * *

Vanya hisses, clenching down on Pollux's arm, beads of sweat slowly trickling down his pale face, having gone almost the color of Constantine's heart, an invisible sheen, as Cambric towers over the ballet dancer, a bundle of gauze held in his left hand as he slowly starts to wrap it around his arm. It had all happened so quickly, he still has no true understanding of what actually took place during that rally, and Pollux attests to himself that he has always been able to see fairly well and understand a room. Somehow he misses seeing the shifty character in the back during the kid's speech, and simply hears the gunshots, the splatter of scarlet, and all the screaming. Their Peacekeeper escort back to base, with Vanya whimpering in pain, as Pollux keeps the pressure down on the wound, trying not to puke in his mouth, has a grim face. He asks him, politely, in private, when Kevia, Cambric, and Rennie take the boy from Eleven as to the sadness coming from someone generally so stalwart.

Their escort knew the man he shot and killed, a close friend, and someone with different ideological beliefs.

Pollux cannot believe he even asks the follow-up question that he does end up blurting out. _"Why would you be friends with someone who thinks radically different than you?_" It is the glare that keeps him from asking another question, instead hightailing it back to the infirmary. It isn't much, with only twelve beds and a few machines along other sorts of equipment, but it is not going to be enough space to house any of the forces actually sitting in the bunker right now, or the army collecting outside on the outskirts of the city. Pollux isn't sure where the people inside the room actually even went, as his mind is focused on _Vanya, Vanya, Vanya... _the tribute is the most important thing in all of this, but he knows that shouldn't be what is the actual case, as their case is fighting a war against tyranny. Keeping the eighteen tributes - _seventeen, _actually, Pollux notes, when he sees that there's some face crossed off the list on the screens outlying the city, the girl from Five, which has Bloom and Sage swearing under their breath - alive is something they've wanted - _actually, it would've been all of them, _his mind snidely tells him - since the beginning, but Bonnie dying and going up in flames is the main goal.

Not the souls that followed and tagged along.

"But we let them..." Pollux whispers to himself, running a finger through a loop of thread that came off of the jacket he's dressed in during the scuffle and run away. Hale, over in the corner, looks over at him with a frown, but doesn't press any other statements. Vanya clenches onto his shoulder again, nails digging into his clavicle. Cambric finishes wrapping up the shoulder, and the intensity of the room seems to settle down some as everyone collectively takes a breath, stepping away from the situation and giving the teen some space. Pollux doesn't even think about what it is he's doing, by applying pressure onto the wound, until he removes his hand and sees the vermillion run-off, and realizes for the first time in his life he's had physical contact with blood. He's never been a reckless dare devil who slips and scrapes his knee, or decides to go jumping off of a high place and skin his elbow, let alone break a bone.

Valencia finds him when they return, all in a panic, and she's by his side immediately seeing the blood. "Pollux?" she takes a deep breath, blue eyes searching for the injury, her head shrouded in shadow. They share the same color, he notes, seeing her dark locks. "Pollux, you're- are you hurt?"

"It's not my blood," his voice is much more hoarse than he expects, as if he has been the one doing all the screaming for the last hour and a half. However, the moment he says he isn't the one hurt, Valencia throws a towel at him and then heads in the direction of the infirmary where everyone else had been heading, the victors hot on the tributes heels, for it seems to be the tributes who are the most concerned. That's the first question Sage asks.

"He died, right?"

"He better have," Bloom grumbles, crossing her arms.

"Yeah," Vanya exhales woozily, leaning on Cambric for support. "He got shot in the head."

"Good," Ciphra grits her teeth, and Pollux is surprised by the bloodthirstiness that seems to creep from the girl. "I hope it was painful." She is a far cry different from the spazzy and intelligent girl that sits on his stage just twelve hours ago, dressed in cashmere and silk and polyester, a decadent rainbow pouring down from the spotlights, and that delightful twinkle in her eyes is a cold one now, set in stone, gritty, and perilous. The tributes are all like that, and Pollux remembers how Cambric's interview went, with his spooky admission. To see him be so caring in front of him... he doesn't quite know what to think of it.

Pollux runs a hand through his hair, it still damp with sweat from their run. He swears he feels like there's a legion of Peacekeepers behind them, but there's nothing but Vanya's ragged breaths and their boots hitting the floor as they run. However, all the interviewer can focus on is the possible blood trail they're leaving in their wake as they run, and what is going to mean for someone who thinks to go their way. He breaks away from his thoughts, as Pollux realizes he started picturing the trail in his head, shining copper in all of those dampening golden lights stuck to the ceiling, and his gaze falls on Rennie, who is hanging in the back corner of the room, arms crossed over his chest, and his head bowed so his chin is close to his sternum. Their leader arrived in the infirmary almost immediately as Vanya is placed onto a hospital bed by Sage, but he doesn't move from his position, nor has he opened his eyes. He holds his tablet close to his chest, and Pollux isn't in the mood to translate currently.

Cambric sets the medical kit aside, as Sage and Bloom immediately cross over to him, Ciphra hanging back closer by the group of victors. None of them know what to do, as Pollux can see that on their faces; these kids aren't _theirs _and the condition of only caring about whoever you're mentoring has sunk deep into their veins. Valencia's expression is the closest one Pollux can see, as just a year ago... she had caused wounds just like the one in Vanya's shoulder, and definitely those that end worse.

"How are you feeling?" Cambric asks Vanya, and Pollux switches spots with the medic, who has seemed to take up most of the space in the little crevice granted to them.

"Like my body just got shot," Vanya replies, rather lamely.

"Because you just did," Sage snorts, and she rolls her eyes, auburn hair pulled back into a tight bun.

"You weren't followed, right?" Hector breaks through and into the front of the group, but his question is directly sent to Pollux. He had never gotten to interview him, he thinks to himself, ignoring the question. His victory had been before his time, just by a couple of years.

"No, we weren't."

"Are you sure?" Lance urges on the concern, bringing his eyebrows together.

"If I say we weren't followed, we weren't followed, okay?" Pollux says, with a sharp edge to his voice.

However, his confidence in that statement isn't even his own, but in the guy who's name he doesn't catch, someone who disappears into the armory level of the base, and hasn't come out since. He can hear the thudding of something beneath his very feet, perhaps a punching bag. He reminds himself to go and ask the man what his name is, for he really did save his life, and it hasn't occurred to the interviewer on quite that level yet. He's been shot at, sure, and now, thanks to their fearless leader, has gotten to see detonations before his very eyes, but that moment there, in the abandoned building... it's an assassination attempt.

Is it weird for him to feel that he is honored in such actions?

"No one's saying we don't believe you," Hale ventures, ever the peacemaker - "_Yeah, okay," _Pollux's mind laughs at him, "_She's the woman who nearly killed Kevia in broad daylight over blackmail_." _\- _as she steps forward some. "But, obviously, we're not in any position where being tailed is a good thing."

Rennie steps away from the corner of the room, turning on his tablet, and he begins going at the keys, everyone's attention turned onto him. Pollux has his gaze constantly flit back and forth between Vanya's shoulder and the gauze surrounding it, which has started to turn crimson relatively quick, and the spastic firing away as Rennie's fingers scatter across the keyboard. He pauses for a second, raising an eyebrow, which is blonde as well, to match his hair color, but Pollux thinks he's going to go back to the auburn color again, as there's no need to hide any longer, before nodding in assertion with something. Rennie turns the tablet around to face the group, Pollux reading it immediately.

"_They made a move, by pulling the kill switch. I detonate the bombs. They blow up the training center. I bring an army to their feet. They shoot Vanya in the shoulder and have Seth try and kill Valencia..." _A lump forms in Pollux's throat, but it seems someone else beats him to the punch.

"A game of chess," Kevia whispers, bringing a hand to her neck, curling it into a light fist. "They react, we react, and they react back harder," and she lifts her head up. "That means we're the ones to push back," and that has her raise an eyebrow, lips curling into a smile. "What do you have planned?"

Something flares up in Pollux's chest, an irritation almost, which has him go to scratch it away, All of these plans made on the fly, where Rennie seems to be improvising based on how the wind seems to hit his extended pinkie finger. He's supposed to be the Avox's second in command, yet he is finding out all of this information the moment everyone else is too. Where's his insight? Where's his needed opinion on warfare and battle strategies and the best way to get rid of the tyrant in power. _It's not as if he's made an effort to have his voice heard. Just sticking by the wall seems to do it for you, my dear Aetos, you tapeworm plastic idiot._

Rennie's smile matches the same level as Kevia, while his fingers go away at it. "_We bring the fight to them. We gather those forces and join up with them, and we battle."_

"Battle?" Hale echoes the word, a look of mystery crossing over her face, but Pollux can't read it. "Where?"

"_Gamemakers Square." _

"Gamemakers Square?" That has Valencia furrow her eyebrows together as well. "Why there?"

"_Every battle needs a stage, wouldn't you agree?"_ Rennie is the one who signs that, but it seems to be just for the victors, who nod their approval, while the five collected tributes have frowns on their faces, unable to read the sign language. Pollux makes a note to grab a copy for each of them, in case they'll need it. This is the one thing Pollux does know about, however, when thinking of insight, something the two of them spoke about earlier in the morning, around the four A.M time when the kids went to bed, after bringing them to safety, or as safe as they could get.

Pollux makes his way to the center of the room, clearing his throat. "As I'm sure you all were going to ask," as he can see out of the corner of his eye, Sage opening her mouth to rebuttal with _something._ "Yes, we've assigned roles for you guys if we were to leave and battle. Sage," he addresses her first, and she locks eyes with him. "We knew you'd be a fighter, as Head Gamemaker Fallorne told me how strong you were, and that you threw the axe at her... you'll be fighting. Cambric," he jumps to the medic, "We need medics, and you know what you're signing up for. Vanya would've gone with us, but due to his injury, he'll stay behind to help Ciphra with whatever she needs..." he does not know the specifics, but Pollux sees Criston speaking with the girl from Three over breakfast about some sort of complicated electronics system, an idea that totally flies over his head. "And Bloom... you'll be staying behind too."

"What?" the girl from Twelve cries out, she getting to her feet, and Sage about to back her up. "You're going to keep me from the fight?"

"Not that we don't think you can't fight," Valencia overrides the hasty impatience as quickly as she can, holding a hand out to soothe the tensions in the room, "But Rennie had been scouting you out for a reason. You spent every day for a year straight trying to get people in Twelve to join hands against the Capitol, but you said it never worked," a solemn nod comes from Bloom's side of the room, she locking her jaw, and Pollux swears he sees tears in her eyes. "You were never punished because District 12 has had the fight beaten out of them, and they've always been lax in the Peacekeeper department..." and the victor from the last Quarter Quell lifts her head up triumphantly. "But we've heard your voice. Just because people in the districts joined us here doesn't mean there still isn't a fight out there for them. And they're going to need a voice."

Bloom takes a step back for a moment, completely at a loss for words, as Vanya squeezes her on the shoulder comfortingly.

Rennie sighs, rubbing at his brow. "_I want to catch Bonnie off guard, if that's even possible. We'll mobilize later tonight... so for now, I suggest catching up on your sleep as much as you can. Pollux and Criston will be staying behind, while the others will be fighting too... and I'll be heading the charge,"_ That is news to Pollux. Rennie, leading a group to war, a man who cannot even speak, taking up the heralding call for the voices of many. If he dies, what would they do? A voiceless martyr? Do those even exist?

"Wait, you're forgetting someone," Ciphra buts in, but then as everyone looks at her for her to continue, for she rather blurts out her statement, a faint blush settles on her cheeks. She composes herself, smoothing out the edges of her training uniform, having ditched the blood soaked one in the laundry. "What about Seth?"

How could he forget about Seth? The boy from Five... and the one who tried to stab Valencia in the heart for... _ something, _though that reason has been undisclosed.

She puts up a good point, however. If everyone marches off to war, there's still an alleged murderer and criminal locked up in a cell just a few floors down from them, sitting away, and preferably, Pollux doesn't mind having him rot away, but by how Rennie brings a hand to his chin, frowning, and then his eyes flit back and forth between the interviewer and then all the way over at Bloom, whose neck has started to tinge scarlet at the base, Pollux's heart begins to beat faster in his chest.

It looks like there'll be some unfinished business he must attend to.

* * *

**_Hale Cornerstone: Victor of the 87th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

She's sitting on the edge of her bed, comforter and sheets rolled up into a bundle pressed against her back, and she's shaking her leg against the floor, chomping away at the cuticles of the fingers on her left hand. Hale presses her right hand against her neck, feeling the thrum of her pulse against her palm, closing her eyes, sighing. She would lie up against Arizona and do this, all night as a matter of fact, while he'd push curls out of her eyes, or kiss her on the nose. The little things like that, the things she can remember about him, when eventually even those memories will fade, brush strokes dissipating on a veneer of superficiality. What would the Capitol take after her husband, and her children? Hale isn't saying she doesn't value her life, but it is beneath the other parts of her that matter. What do you destroy when there's nothing left?

Hale reaches behind her pillow, holding tight onto the blade that she placed there. There aren't any sheaths or coverings in the armory for her to place the blade into, so she's going to have to do without; she shouldn't even have the weapon in the first place, but what people don't know won't hurt them, right? Rennie and Pollux gave her the exact cover she needed, and the perfect reasoning to explain how the other party will react. Arianne and Elias need her, Hale holding back a choked sob. What had been the last words she ever spoke to her children? Their real last words? Calling out for them in the train station with Bonnie's goons holding them back is not the same thing as physically speaking to her flesh and blood, suntanned and dark haired, bright eyed and wide smiled... what was it?

"_I love you,_" she tells Arianne, her daughter, older than Elias, a near spitting image of her. "Without the bloodthirstiness," Hale says aloud, removing herself from the memory. Her daughter is a beam of sunshine, with a cute smile, pigtails, and a love for daises and daffodils. Elias is Arizona's twin, practically, a headstrong attitude, a bucktoothed grin, and the perchance to go on wild adventures with a dosage of reckless behavior. Hale wouldn't trade them for the world; she'd do anything for them, as any mother would for their children, or otherwise they're lying and saying that they're parents when they're really not.

The victor runs a hand down her left arm, getting to her feet, her mind going back to the blade. She thought about taking a pistol from the armory too, but she's never fired one before, and the last thing she needs to do is draw more unwanted attention to herself. Her name will be on plenty of billboards, and plenty of mugshots, and plenty of other signs to look for a dejected victor from a bygone era. She hates to call herself that, a bygone and forgotten member of society, but even as a victor, once the spotlights dim on your name in about six to seven years, people cease to think you exist. Hale is okay with the idea of people believing she no longer exists, for it makes what she wants to go and do a lot easier. The victor grabs the blade by the hilt, pulling it free from behind the cover.

It has been a long time since she's held a blade in a manner of self defense. It has been a long time since she's seen the copper spill from pale flesh via her own machinations. What does she say to Kevia, a year ago, in the Viewing Center? "_Stay away or I'll kill you,_" Hale recalls herself hissing at the older woman, someone she thought she could've counted on as a friend. Thinking about it now, Hale bursts into laughter. It is the first statement that comes to mind back then, a threat with no teeth, as she knows that she doesn't have it in her to kill anyone anymore. She's seen enough death to last an entire extra lifetime, as her district partner in the arena busts a kid's head open with the blunt end of an ice pick, rather than the sharp point, or how her arch-nemesis, the girl from Four, spears her district partner through the back of the head.

She grimaces away from the mental images, shuddering, and physically pushing herself away from the bedframe. Hale hears a voice, a male one, down the other end of the hall, she fretting back and forth between sitting down or staying still, as the blade is in her hands. The victor leaps forward to place the blade just at the edge of the bedspread when Hector rounds the corner, coming just into view. Her heartbeat slows down some as she takes in full view her brother-in-law. He's gotten himself cleaned up with a shower, wiping the blood away and out of his hair, charcoal black underneath the grime of the bunker walls, eyes a bit brighter than the morose syrupy color she's seen the last few days. There are parts that will never heal, however, as she sees the bruises that line up his arms, or the faint cuts she sees that line the insides of his hands, or across the jaw and around the eyes.

"There you are!" he exclaims, perhaps a bit more happy than what is necessary, but she smiles, crossing the room and hugging him. He's the closest thing to family she's got, with her kids so close, yet being so far away. She hopes he doesn't look over at the bed; he'll know immediately, and he won't forgive her. None of them will forgive her, let alone understand, for what Hale is preparing herself to do. "I was just going to get lunch and then try those spears again. Do you want to join me or..." Hector's voice trails off, as he then looks past his fellow victor, eyes narrowing in on the knife sitting out.

"Yeah, sure, let's go!" she pipes right back at him, with the same matching intensity, going to move past him. Hale breaks through the doorway, one hand circling around the outer edge, before pausing to a standstill. He is not following her, Hector stepping further into the room. The victors have been granted single rooms for any that can be found, though Kevia has decided to bunk with Lance and give Valencia her room. Hale doesn't expect any of them to be staying there for long as is, but Rennie and Pollux have their projections for how long the rebellion could take charting all over the place. Four days, six weeks, three months... Hale hopes it errs somewhere on the smaller side of the scale, for there are only so many apples and cans of beans to be had. "Hector?" she asks, venturing back into the room.

Hector takes another step towards the bed, reaching out to touch the knife, but he pauses, his hand hovering just above it. He looks back at her, and a pang runs through her, and she'll never be able to get the heartbroken look out of her head. "You're gonna leave, aren't you?" She doesn't respond, looking over to the side. This is something the Merviere brothers have always shared with one another, an undying need to question, question, _question, _and never let anyone just be. "Hale, answer me. You're going to leave, right?"

There are no doors to close for the rooms, Hale peeking out into the hallway to see if there's anyone there to eavesdrop on the conversation. She walks right up to him, gritting her teeth together. "That witch has my children somewhere, Hector," she's trying to keep her voice down, to hide the venomous edge that is threatening to appear. "Fighting against her and ending the Hunger Games is amazing and all, but I am not going to have my kids become sacrifices for this war," tears threaten to spill again, as she feels a lump rise in her throat. "I've already lost my husband, Hector. I can't lose them," and then, as she realizes it while speaking, "I can't lose you either."

"You aren't going to lose them," he tells her, but he leaves one hand resting on the railing for the bedframe, Hector placing a finger under her chin. "And you aren't going to lose me either. I promise you."

She knocks his hand away, going back to sit on the bed, holding the blade by the hilt. "Don't promise me anything here, Hector," Hale locks gazes with him, and he breaks it first, looking down at the floor. "Not in this hell. Promises don't come true here. They never did."

Hector runs a hand through his hair, but Hale can see that he's shaking, shaking badly by how hard his fingers tremble when tussling through the dark strands, a black seaweed forest, before his hand falls limply back to his side. "You're really gonna go, huh?"

"Hector, I _have _to," Hale argues, getting to her feet. "And Rennie has provided the best opportunity. Gamemakers Square?" she knows how pretty that locale in the center of the city is, with a towering statue built to be like a globe, golden rings locked in combat with other, and a shimmering sphere of silver held in place by gravity in the center. Hale can picture the streets all torn up, smoke billowing from the center of the stature, and all the bodies, bodies of her oppressors. "With everyone focused on the battle, Lazarus _in _the battle, and with Bonnie and Constantine focused solely on it..." she grips him by the wrist. "It's the perfect opportunity."

"You don't even know where they're being held-"

"I am sure I can find out for myself somehow," she says pointedly. Hale gets one last look around her room, nothing more than a fifteen by ten size cube. Stark gray walls fading and chipping away, revealing an puke olive green underneath it. She's been living in cramped spaces for the last two weeks, a prison cell and a bunker; the locations are alike. It might be the last time she even gets to sleep in a bed, now that she thinks about it, a chill running across her arms. She grabs the blade, holding onto it tight.

She tries pushing past Hector, as saying goodbye would be too painful for her, as she's going to get her children back come hell or high water, when he grabs her by the wrist, stopping her from leaving again.

"You aren't going alone," he says, after she looks at him with a smirk on his face. Hector has always been good at smirks. Hale rips her arm free, frowning at him. Threatening him away with a knife s not going to be the smartest decision she can make, but she considers it briefly, just for a second, what Hector would look like with a blade sticking out of him. It is the virtue of a victor, after all, the thought of seeing murder out of every situation once comes across. "You go in there by yourself, you're surely dead."

"You're not going-" she starts to argue, but that's a losing battle before it is even waged.

"Not going?" Hector scoffs, and then extends his arms wide. "Look at me, Hale. You think I'm prepped for battle? That I can survive a warzone?" he shakes his head in dissent, and Hale tends to agree. She knows him, her brother-in-law did kill people in the Games at eighteen, sure, but it still scars him, as he can picture the barbed wire bleeding the last remaining tribute out, tainting the wire and grim and dark copper. Hale pictures it in her head too, as she's seen a rerun of his Games before, laying in bed waiting for another arena day to start. That had been her, shortly after her victory, laying in bed and watching other victors games. It had been a morbid routine for her, one she's happy she's stopped. "I lost the fight in me a long time ago; I'm not fit for something like it. And... you'll need backup."

Hale knows that if she left without him, he'd try to stop her. If he tries to stop her and fails, she doesn't want to think about the burnt bridge she's created from that moment of stupidity. If she leaves, escapes, and survives, Hector is telling the first person who'll care to listen, and that's a bigger mess than anything she'll need in her life. She closes her eyes, leaning up against the wall, swinging the knife back and forth. "Fine," Hale agrees, through clenched teeth, after a moment's peace. "I won't stop you."

"Good," he tells her, crossing his arms. "That still doesn't do anything about us not knowing where to go."

"Luckily for you," a voice interrupts Hale, as she opens her mouth to say that it doesn't matter, for she'd follow a mother's intuition, but the familiar feminine voice cuts her off first. "I know where they're being held," and someone steps out of the shadows and into the light of the doorframe. "And luckily for you, I'm coming along."

Hale takes in the sight of Kevia Janelle, fellow victor in arms, her blonde hair laid against her camo jacket and battle uniform, several blades attached in hilts and sheaths at her sides, and in her left hand, a pistol, the grime black paint of it blending it with the shadow backsplash of the hallway. Kevia has her arms crossed, leaning in the doorway, smirking, as Hector gasps.

"No," Hale immediately cuts in. She's not sure if it is because it's _Kevia _of all people volunteering, or because she doesn't want anyone else to die on her watch, with her in the lead. "Kevia, I can't have-"

"Save it for someone who cares," Kevia holds a hand up, silencing her fellow victor. "I'm gonna go with you and that's final," a shadow of doubt flashes over her face. "I'm not so sure if it's all my fault that this started, that all this came to pass, but I know I did play a part in your kids falling into Bonnie's hands," Somehow, though Hale is surprised she is capable of doing it, Kevia finds her eyes, and the gaze is steely, held together, no signs of tears forming. "Bonnie made me cover their eyes when she threw Arizona in front of that train," Hale flinches at the sound in her head, the screeching of breaks, and how Arizona never even gets out that last scream. What were his last words? What were the last things he said to Elias and Arianne? "So, yeah, I'm going, and that's final."

"_Kevia!_" Hale groans out loud.

"I said _save it,_" Kevia insists, stepping further into the room, holding out one of her blades, handing it to Hector. "Do you have a game plan?"

"I know a safehouse," the victor from Two points out, picturing it in her head clearly. That is, if it's still standing at the end of it. "Rennie wants the battle to happen tomorrow, right? I'd say we head there now, and then tomorrow during the fight, we head to where they're being taken..." she pauses, frowning, looking at Kevia. For the first time, her body doesn't want to itch from being so close to her. "Where are they being held?"

"An annex wing in the back of the mansion. It's fully furnished and they're being well taken care of," Kevia answers, but she blinks, realizing her mistake. "But with Bonnie I imagine that doesn't mean much," Hale nods in approval, thinking of the annex wing in the mansion. She's seen it before, when Bonnie is pregnant, and they're turning it into a nursery. Her kids are in a nursery? That isn't _too _far. Kevia furrows her eyebrows together, at the earlier part of Hale's statement. "Safehouse? Hale," the victor from One tenses. "Please tell me it's not the place I'm thinking of."

"It- it's the same one," Hale winces, as Kevia rolls her eyes, but poor Hector standing in the corner, trying to figure out how to hold the knife, looks at the two of them in confusion.

"You just had to, huh?"

"I did," she responds back enthusiastically.

Hale does everything in her life because she _has _to.

Saving her children is one of them.

Slitting Bonnie's throat open from end to end in a ruby red smile follows it.

* * *

**_Lazarus Pietro: Head Peacekeeper P.O.V_**

* * *

This has turned into quite the day, quite the development. Lazarus has focused himself on his breathing exercises to keep his head on straight. There's a lot happening in front of him, as he watches their commander-in-chief slowly start to crumble bit by bit. He holds his tongue, however, for he knows that if he says anything she'll hit him again. He is supposed to not to touch her back, to touch any dignitary figure if they're to strike him, as it is written in his contract when he signs up to be a Peacekeeper. Lazarus had spent his time going back and forth to being a Peacekeeper in the Capitol, and the _Head Peacekeeper _of District 2, although home for him would only be a few months out of the year, sharing the spot with a woman whose name he's forgotten, as she died of an accidental case of malaria just a few years back. Lazarus remembers Calhoun promoting him just shortly before the end of the Quarter Quell, and all Lazarus can think about his the sturdy hand gripping onto his shoulder.

He's forever in debt to the Rodney's, and no matter how vile he might find Bonnie to be on certain matters, she's his boss, and what she says _goes. _

Such as the fact of him pointing a gun at the two people standing in front of him, quivering and latching onto each other. He tries to suppress the grin he has on his face, but it is one of the moments where he gets to take his helmet and look at people straight in the face. It is part of Bonnie's orders in fact, for their victims to see exactly who is holding their life by a precipice, to directly stare into the gaze of those who could end their pathetic, worthless lives. Lazarus may or may not have added that bit at the very end, for their lives are worthless if it is has all built up to someone betraying the place that provides them said life. He doesn't understand the concept of rebellions, at their very core. Lazarus understands fighting back and standing up for oneself, easy enough, and maybe bending the rules when one can... but this is different.

He has objected to having this be out in the open, though, since any of those in the Phoenix Company can come free any second and destroy whatever is in their line of sight. Lazarus is surprised that the tall order Bonnie wants already exists, that it just needs to be moved into place, and it is by the time they arrive, the hostage with them crying out in anguish and pain, that girl from District 6, Amaris, having to pinch a nerve ending in his neck to keep him from falling over himself. Rodric Oxford, their prisoner, as Bonnie changes the rules the moment the armada appears in the sky. It blindsides him too, as it does her, that the mute who screws his sister has the ability to rouse up the crowds. He is on the phone all morning, assembling and sending out the Peacekeeper squads in the districts to keep the peace, but everything has collapsed into hell in a handbasket.

The live feeds of the districts, all across Panem, is pandemonium. All production has come to a crippling halt, for in every district, and yes, even _Two _\- "_Those traitors!" Lazarus screams at the screen. - _where there are citizens fighting the Peacekeepers in the streets. He can only give out so many orders and send so many squadrons to put down quells in the districts, for he needs every hand on deck for the fight happening here. Which is where Bonnie's next instance of the plan comes into play... to snag the members of those who can physically affect the groups collected in the Capitol. Enter, Exhibit A, Rodric Oxford. Lazarus sees him shaking from atop the gallows on stage, a noose that has not been tightened yet hanging limply around his neck.

Lazarus is unable to see if he's crying or not, but it'd only make him want to tell Aris Lindel, the ever ready to be useful District 2 lad - "_Of course he's from Two," _Lazarus smiles to himself, as those from Two are always ready to lick the boots of the Capitol, to lick them clean - to pull the switch that would drop the floor out from underneath Rodric. He would be able to hear the neck snap from where he's standing, and he'd drink in the violence into his veins, or the screams from the couple standing in front of him. Getting them there had been easy enough, Bonnie sending a messenger with a surrender flag down to the other end of the city, to bring back the father and mother pair to the mansion to witness the spectacle of the year before their very eyes.

The gallows are perched high on the stage, a wooden staircase leading up to the top of them, the only occupants being Rodric and Aris. Bonnie is standing down directly in front of it, dressed in a gorgeous vermillion dress, perhaps a bit too flashy for a public hanging, but he thinks she looks good in it, for as good as it can be. The city is quiet, Bonnie instilling a lockdown on all residents for the time being, and he can hear the groans from their disgruntled citizens, as everyone would be filling the streets to watch the Games take place, but everything has been brought down to a standstill. Lazarus is standing on the sidewalk, off of the self constructed stage, gun leveled in his hand, another squadron of Peacekeepers standing locked arm in arm behind the pair in front of them, batons out and ready.

All on her orders, should she give them.

"Mom! Dad!" Rodric cries out, but his pleas towards his parents fall on deaf ears, as Lazarus locks eyes with the Oxford's, ranch owners from Ten, and two people who've admitted to leading a sizeable force in their stead, five hundred strong at least. The father looks over at his son for a brief moment, fear wide and apparent in his stare, but the wife grips his hand tighter, keeping his gaze steady on Bonnie. That's correct, Lazarus admires in his head, to keep your eyes on the prize, on the one who is able to kick the cradle over if she chooses to.

Bonnie doesn't have a microphone on, nor would she need one, as she decides to sit down directly in front of the Oxford parents, her legs swinging back and forth, a cherry sweet smile painted on her face. "Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. Oxford. How are we doing today?"

"Go to hell," the man hisses at her.

Lazarus tightens his grip on the pistol. He should shoot his brains out just for speaking at her like that. Bonnie purses her lips, frowning at him. He's seen that look before, a salty tang hiding behind the president's icy glare, partially hidden behind a layer of grief. The woman clenches onto her husband's arm tighter, digging her nails in. Bonnie makes a cooing noise in her throat, priming like a snake ready to strike. All Lazarus needs is an okay to do so, and he'll squeeze the trigger and watch with glee as their bodies flop lifelessly to the ground. He punishes himself in the dark hallways on the way to the presidential bunker after the bombs go off in the mansion, trying to not gasp as he dives the blade deeper and deeper into the sole of his foot, scraping away flesh like butter spread over too much bread. He should've taken the shot at Rennie when the window of opportunity is open to him, but now he'll never know.

He won't hesitate to fire again if it comes to that, to destroy whatever he needs to. To destroy whoever she tells him to, without question. "_You'd shoot yourself if she asked you?_" the voice inside his head asks, similar to that of his father, but also blended with that of the president - _the old president, _he reminds himself - as Calhoun's cadence is warm, always. "Absolutely..." Lazarus whispers to no one but himself. Loyalty to those who breath life into your lungs is the loyalty that'll save you from burning in hell everlasting, to join the sunlit skies and the ivory walkways and the air that smells delectable. He is to be rewarded when kingdom come hails onto Panem from above.

Bonnie runs a finger over the edge of the stage, biting on the inside of her cheek with a minor frown. "That's no way to speak to a lady, Mr. Oxford. Wouldn't you agree?"

"Right," the wife interrupts, before Rodric's father can do anything or cause any more trouble.

"Just listen to what she wants!" Rodric yells out from his perch on stage, straining in his bonds, hands tied behind his back, but Lazarus knows Aris would jump at the opportunity to educate his little hostage. "Please!"

"I'd listen to him," Lazarus speaks, probably interrupting over the president, who looks at him a bit sharper than he expects. Amaris bristles over in her corner, being one of the occupants in the Peacekeeper section, but she's preferred to be unarmed for this encounter.

Bonnie hums her approval, continuing to run her finger along the edge of the stage. When she brings her fingers up, close to her face, her left pointer finger is stained a charcoal black, having picked up some of the runoff that made the rubber edge that she touches. The president frowns, rubbing her fingers together, and a pillar of the material sifts between her touch, and Lazarus watches it fall. She looks over at the Oxford's. "Your son is being smart, and I suggest you do so too, sir," and the father swallows heavily. "I invited you here for a reason, Mr. and Mrs. Oxford. Your son up there is a pleasant guy, I'm sure, and charming on all accounts, but I have no problem disposing of him as needed, nor do I have a problem with disposing you as needed..." she gets to her feet, kicking away from the stage. Lazarus feels goosebumps erupt on his arms; goodness, he _loves _when she speaks like this. Authoritative, and how the leader of Panem should speak. "I just rubbed ashes off of my fingers, and ashes is all that will remain if the war you've been enlisted in to fight ever gets off the ground," she is up and in their personal space, not budging an inch. "I am asking you to stand down, you and your forces from District Ten," Bonnie tightens her smile. "If you do that, I promise you, on my word, that I will spare Rodric and send him back to your care. The forces you brought with you will be free to leave, or they can assimilate here into the Capitol as best as they can... and if you do this, I am sure the other districts I am planning to ask will follow suit to your example."

It is the best deal he can think of. With Constantine disappearing - "_She didn't disappear," Bonnie tells him, picking dirt out from under her fingernails with a toothpick _\- to her underground cave to play with mutts, mutts that Bonnie will need, he's her next line of defense, the next line when it comes to stratagem and plots and such. Bonnie wants, initially, to execute everyone and not leave room for mercy, but Lazarus has seen firsthand that this lack of mercy creates the rebellious flames stoking before them, and the flames that threaten to infest the platinum streets of the Capitol. Amnesty can be offered to a majority of the district citizens that have flown in to fight for Rennie's pathetic cause. Perhaps not pathetic enough, Lazarus mulls, but not in his head, that is has people flying from all over to combat some sort of regime... but no mercy will be offered to the Capitol constituents that participate, for they've squandered the ability for peace.

"You can't just-" the father begins to pipe up again, but Rodric's mother latches onto his shoulder this time, as hard as she can, almost tugging him down to her level.

"Dad! Just do what she says!" Rodric screams again, and Lazarus looks at him. He thought he had been an impressive looking tribute, stepping off the District Ten train with that equally as intimidating district partner of his, only to prove to be a disappointment every step of the road. Fear is in his eyes, fear and uncertainty. A pathetic mix. He's no real man, to be standing up there, as he isn't fighting for his life. He's _pleading _for his life.

"What's it going to be? Your son's life? Or your people's?" Bonnie raises an eyebrow. "If you refuse my offer, I'll kill him. I'll kill you. I will slaughter every single District Ten citizen I can lay my hands off if I must to bring an end to this rebellion, and so no more ashes spread," the president lifts a hand and flings a few of the flecks of black dust at the parents. "What will it be?"

It is not a moment of hesitation, as the mother almost leaps for Bonnie's own arms. "We'll stand down! We'll surrender! Just give us Rodric! Give him to us, please!"

Lazarus presses a finger into his earpiece that has been nestled in said space for as long as he can remember. He taps it twice, sending a signal back to base; a technician there will relay the message to the second in command for the District Ten forces, a direct wired link between the two.

The woman didn't even give up a fight. Lazarus almost snorts at her desperation; how can someone fight in a rebellion or a war and not stand by the principles they want? Over their son's life? One life out of how many?

Bonnie nods her head, keeping the slick smile on her face, Lazarus tightening his grip around the butt end of the pistol. He'll finally get to use it.

She turns her back on the collected group in front of her, to continue her walk back to the base, back to the mansion. "Thank you for your cooperation," and then, with a slight pause hanging on the air, "Go ahead, Aris! Drop the lever!"

On the gallows, Rodric screams bloody murder, trying to break free from his bonds, trying to rip the noose off of his head in a lasso motion. Both of his parents process the information just delivered to them, their eyes widening, and both looking directly at their son; Lazarus keeps his own directly on them. Aris flips the switch, and the panel underneath Rodric's feet falls free. The tribute from Ten slips into the slot allocated for his body, his breath going out in one quick swipe, Lazarus hearing the clean neck crack from here. His body kicks out in futile measures, but the deed's been done.

The mother screams in terror, and the father makes a leap for Bonnie, but he's an idiot; he'll never get there.

Lazarus paints the cobblestones with the Oxford's blood and brain matter, all while keeping an eye on Rodric's body locked in the throes of death, a pulsating cerulean ring appearing around his neck, eyes wide, bulging out of his head. Aris is looking directly at his fellow tribute, a wide grin on his face, but as Lazarus looks at Amaris, her gaze is focused on the street.

It doesn't matter, as Lazarus towers over the dying bodies of the Oxford paternity, firing another two shots for good measure into both of their heads.

War's plague doesn't discriminate.

It comes for all that taste its foul and begotten seed.

And Lazarus will take up the call no matter the occasion.

Long live the Queen, right?

* * *

**17th: Rodric Oxford, 17, District 10 Male. Killed in the rebellion via hanging. Created by Alexcias. Ah, Rodric, Rodric, Rodric... you lovable man, you were only ever a piece for Vivian to combat, and a pawn in someone else's game; they're playing chess while you're playing checkers. I truly liked writing you, but your time would be limited in the hands of someone as vicious and vile as Bonnie, where promises are a dime a dozen, and keeping those promises rarer than a blue moon. I think you were a good combatant to Vivian's brashness and fiery temper, but like all things, it consumed you too. The second true casualty in this war, sadly, and there'll be plenty more on the horizon. Rest well, Rodric; I'll miss you.**

* * *

**_Tribute List (Boy - Girl)_**

District 1: **Cyril Barther** [_Submitted by thorne98_] / **Satin Spinel **[_Submitted by Mistycharming_]

District 2: **Aris Lindel **[_Submitted by Grimbutnotalways_] / **Maren Johnson **[_Submitted by Crashed Ice24_]

District 3: **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 4: **Anahita Cascade **[_Submitted by Reader Castellan_]

District 5: **Seth Cables **[_Submitted by Nemris_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara **[_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 7: **Sage Dagoba **[_Submitted by AlexFalTon_]

District 8: **Cambric Vogel **[_Submitted by dyloccupy_]

District 9: **Jason Lacey **[_Submitted by ilvidis_]

District 10: **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

District 11: **Vanya Vasiliev **[_Submitted by TheMayflyProject_]

District 12: **Mirek Bosco** [_Submitted by_ curiousclove] / **Bloom Estrada **[_Submitted by LordShiro_]

...

_**Capitol Cast of Characters**_

_President of Panem: _**Bonnie Rodney**

_Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: _**Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies: _**Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games: _**Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: _**Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: _**Hale Cornerstone**

_Victor of the 77th Hunger Games: _**Hector Merviere**

_Victor of the 84th Hunger Games: _**Kevia Janelle**

_Head Gamemaker:_ **Constantine Fallorne**

_Head Peacekeeper: _**Lazarus Pietro**

* * *

**Alrighty folks, that was Chapter #27: War's Plague, a continuation of our rebellion from the Capitol character perspective. This chapter as a whole suits to be that tributes can and _may _die during Capitol chapters, not just during chapters from their own perspectives. I am very satisfied with this word count, haha, and I don't feel like I overdid it. I needed to get through this one, as, even though I say this _all _the time, 28 is where we're really gonna be picking up speed.**

**Vanya is injured, Rennie has assigned roles for everyone but there's an anomaly in that of Mr. Seth Cables from Five. Hale has her own plans and agenda, and it looks like Kevia and Hector are going to be tagging along for the ride... and Bonnie has crippled some of Rennie's team, though who knows how much damage she might have actually done, with the murder of Rodric despite people breaking into her terms. She will do whatever she can, and get rid of whoever she can, in order to win this. Fair Bonnie Rodney has left the building, but I'm not so sure she even existed in the first place. **

**Next chapter, #28: Stepping Up to the Plate, I want ready by the end of the month, the 31st, which is a Tuesday... so nine days from now, which I feel is entirely feasible. It'll be from the tribute perspective again, another group of faces to get their first POVs in the war-time setting, which will be fun. We're getting close to that big blowout I mentioned (looks around suspiciously) but we've got some more hurdles to jump through. Please review; it'll mean the absolute world to me. I am very excited for what is to come. I hope you all have an amazing day! I love you all so much! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	28. Stepping Up to the Plate (Phoenix VI)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #28: Stepping Up to the Plate. This is going to be a chapter solely focused on the tribute perspectives, of course with our Capitolites linked up in there somewhat, furthering their shenanigans as we approach the end of Day 2, with sixteen of these kids still kicking and screaming and living, but expect that number to go down sooner than later, I'd warn. Last chapter, plans were divvyed up for the tributes in the Phoenix Company sans Seth, the trio of Hale-Hector-Kevia has gone rouge on their own mission, and Bonnie has executed Rodric for turning him into a hostage... she's not playing by anybody else's rules. So, here's Chapter #28: Stepping Up to the Plate. Enjoy!**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, if you don't play by his rules from heaven above, count the stars as they dwindle from your life._

**_Cyril Barther: District 1 Male P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

Gray, gray, gray, gray, _gray._ Cyril swears he's seen enough of the gray walls and the bleak shadows of the Capitol to last him a lifetime, should however long his lifetime actually be, of course. He's always found it strange, actually, that the Capitol is only one real color: platinum, and a lot of shimmering from the sun hitting the reflective tile. In District 1, the variety in colors is as if a rainbow had puked all over the surrounding vicinity, where his side of the district, the more affluent side due to his father's sustained victories in the Games - he blanches a bit at that, biting down on his lip - is a swathing lane of emerald and vermillion and brightly blue painted lampposts - why _blue? _\- so to be in a world that is drowning in one bland shade of a precious metal, he might as well yawn.

He has no idea how far they've walked, and listening to Anahita, Jason, and Maren for the last few hours has somewhat been ingratiating, he having half the mind to turn around and snarl at them. It isn't that he doesn't want their company, far from it, now that there's no arena that he has to worry about, but them constantly talking about who knows what feels counter intuitive to the situation at hand. Vivian and Ponty are ahead of him, leading the way to somewhere, as he can tell by the look on Vivian's face that she actually has no idea where she's going, but it wouldn't be fair of him to judge... he has no idea either. The moment she volunteers herself to lead them, a group of six tributes who would never get along in the first place if not for the strange conditions pushing them together, Cyril's appreciation for her goes up.

Yes, he thinks she's attractive, and saw her fight decently well, getting the same training score as him - he could still take her down without a second thought, however; it's Satin that would be the one to look out for, in before he'd have a knife in his throat - but it is the selfless bravery that sticks out to him, sometimes that selfless bravery bleeding into a more headstrong recklessness which could get them all killed, but he doesn't raise his voice on that. Satin's right; he's a coward, always shunning to the other authority, always allowing the others to speak for him, always, always, _always._ At what point is it enough, standing in the shadows and being quiet for the silence to overwhelm him? He's not certain when or how that'll happen, but he expects it to, his father even warned him about it.

Cyril tries to shudder away from the memory of his father, he only being eleven years old at the time, after finding his mother knocked out on the bathroom floor soaked in wine, Emmet's voice slurred and musky with a vintage red, places a hand on his shoulder and tells him what he'll never amount to. "_Me,_" he hears the voice whisper in his head, but it is no longer the voice of his dead, drunk victor father, but his own, a heavier tone filled to the brim with venomous disgust. "_You'll never become me,_" and out loud, as Cyril doesn't realize that voices could echo in the maintenance tunnel they're walking in, "Thank God," he utters aloud, causing the three tributes behind him, and the two tributes in front of him, to cease their conversations, all before they turn to look at him.

He jostles slightly at the sudden unwanted attention, a faint blush rising to his cheeks. Vivian frowns, furrowing her eyebrows together. "You alright, Cyril?"

"Yeah- yeah, I'm fine," he answers back, his throat suddenly dry. There hasn't been anything to drink since they woke up, and Cyril didn't think to take a water bottle with him out of the fridge when Vanya invites him down to the tribute center, along with every other tribute nearly choking up the available space in the elevator.

"Do you want us to include you in our conversations?" Anahita asks him, and Cyril swears he's never felt his heart melt the way it almost does from her sweet, idyllic innocence. He's seen the girl from Four create a graveyard of shredded plastic, but he forgets that she's just a small thirteen year-old who has consumed too much sugar.

He smiles, abashedly. "No, that's not it," Cyril rubs the back of his neck, suddenly noticing how little oxygen there feels to be in the tunnel, pulling at the collar of his shirt.

Ponty opens his mouth, about to say something, when it is Jason that interrupts him, the boy from Six frowning, about to object again, as the mayor's son takes a step forward. "What's that?" Cyril goes to say something too, but everyone follows Jason's gaze, which is extended by him pointing a finger down a beaten path. Vivian matches up to his level, and before Cyril can truly comprehend what's happening, everyone else is pushing past him down the hallway out in front of them. He's not sure who he didn't notice it, but it is another hallway that has seemed to creep up out of nowhere.

Cyril slowly walks down the hallway, but it seems to be that Anahita and Maren are buzzing with energy and excitement, Vivian and Ponty calling after them to keep their voices down. The sides of the hallway transition from a more calcite gray to a mix of gray and blue, a weathered navy, strips of white mixing in the paint, the floor transitioning from a concrete form to that of linoleum. He still has no idea exactly where they are, but Cyril feels that he'll let Vivian, and by proxy Ponty lead them to wherever their next destination is, for whatever may come round the bend.

He's the last to reach the structure that is imposing off of the ground, a husk of metal and twisted steel, and there's a button in the center of the console, but no matter how many times Anahita presses the button - which is a lot, as she seems to be very trigger happy - nothing happens, and the console sits silently. It is the only thing at the end of the corridor, no other service exits to the outside, and no sort of lockers or closets or anything. There are a few things on the ground - is... is that a hammer? - that has Cyril frown, but beyond that, nothing too remarkable, and they should go back the other way; he doesn't like to linger, lingering means stewing in feelings and thoughts, and he's been on the run from those all his life.

"What is this?" Ponty asks the million dollar question, examining the metal. "It's very durable..." he hits it with the butt end of the hammer he's holding onto, but notices the actual hammer down on the ground as well. He picks it up, heftily holding it back and forth.

"If I'm not mistaken," Maren points out, crouching down to touch some papers that have piled up in the corners of the room, picking one up, a layout of some kind. "It's a Peacekeeper substation."

"Peacekeepers?" Jason cries out, physically recoiling away from the walls, dropping his spear to the ground.

"I'm sure of it," the girl from Two nods her head. "It just happens to be off," but she looks over at Anahita pointedly, who is still firing away at trying to get the system to ping. "Anahita, I'd stop doing that. The last thing we need is to turn the abandoned station on, we'd alert every Peacekeeper in the city to our position."

"Then we should leave," Vivian says, authority creeping in her voice. She pulls at the red ribbon holding her hair back absentmindedly, Cyril thinking she doesn't even know she does it, like a nervous tic, but the faces of Ponty and Anahita, which have morphed into frowns, speak otherwise.

"What are these things, though?" Cyril asks, kicking around a few of the items on the ground. He isn't quite sure what they are, but he and Vivian both lean down to pick up the same thing that catches their eye, some sort of cannon-like object, cylindrical in design, gleaming a lustrous silver. His hand brushes over hers briefly, he recoiling away from her, trying to not look at her, but he sees that she doesn't move, entirely unbothered by it. Vivian picks up the object, tossing it over in her hands.

She frowns, testing its weight. "I'm not sure what it is... it's not that heavy, though."

"I can hit it," Ponty offers, holding up the hammer, and then when everyone looks at him, he gives an abashed grin too. "It's my job, guys; to hit things."

"Sure, knock yourself out," Vivian relents, without giving too much of a fight. Cyril has noticed that in her, in their fearless self-appointed leader. Without a second thought, holding the device in his hands, Ponty slams the hammer down on it, startling Cyril. He's about to utter the notion that breaking what looks to be expensive ass equipment _nor _creating all of this noise would be good for their secrecy, but the expression dies in his throat. _Coward, coward, coward! _Satin's voice overwhelms his head, he having to press himself into the far side of the wall alongside Vivian.

Ponty smacks the cylinder a few more times with the hammer, chewing on the inside of his cheek. For a second, there's nothing except the sound of all of their bated breaths, Anahita going to look at what else is on the floor, but then the cylinder starts to shake it, Ponty nearly dropping it. Cyril isn't quite sure what is happening, as the cylinder begins to glow a warm and austere red, a sweet amber that he can almost taste on his tongue, like a drop of honey, when they're all forced back against the wall. Some sort of material shoots out of the cannon into the other wall, blowing straight through it, leaving a mess of brick and dust as the projectile dissipates a few layers in. Everyone's gazes flit to the device with a sort of mystified awe.

"Is- is that an _air _cannon?" Jason questions, Maren looking at him suspiciously. "He's talked about Peacekeeper weapons for security," and then frowns at the rest of them, especially Vivian and Ponty. Cyril can feel the disappointment bubble to the zenith of his veins. "What? You think Peacekeepers only use guns? It's just the only thing we see them use, and I know it for sure."

"We're taking it!" Ponty declares, without preamble.

"_No, _we're not," Vivian bites back, hotly, and this time Cyril looks at her as if she's grown a second head. "Do you see what that thing just did? It blew a hole in like, three walls," and she points down at the path of destruction that the cannon left. "Who knows how loud that was too. It's like Maren said, we don't want every Peacekeeper on our heels."

"But wouldn't the rebels need something like that?" Anahita points out, perking her head up from rummaging through the papers of non-descript importance. "Maybe that can be an advantage to them! I suggest we keep it!"

"Find anything else cool down there?" Jason asks, leaning down next to her.

"Let me look!" Maren exclaims, rushing down to them. Ponty grins, handing the air cannon to Cyril, who fumbles with it in his hands, leaping into the fray as the four of them rustle through the collected papers and scraps of who knows what resting on the ground.

He leans further into Vivian's space, crossing his arms with a smile, as she shakes her head, but she can't hide that short smile peeking from her lips. It is entertaining, as Anahita pushes Jason out of the way gently, for some sort of gleaming metal wedged between in the corner where the walls meet, while Maren grabs a file and stuffs it in her back pocket. It's like watching children play, even though Maren and Jason are just two years younger than him, and Ponty is a year younger than he is... it's entertaining.

"It's like watching kids in a candy store," he comments to Vivian.

She nods her head, but still has a frown on her face. "What's a candy store?"

Cyril looks at her, eyes widening momentarily, eyes averting to the floor. He scratches at the back of his ear, hearing how the exhale he takes echoes around the antechamber, careful to not drop the air cannon in his hands. "You-"

"There are some things other districts don't have, y'know," Vivian mentions, and he winces. He knows what she means, but he's never been told that before by someone else in that manner, not in her own special way. And goodness, she makes him crazy. "Some of us aren't as... privileged," she says after a drawl, taking in a shaky breath.

There's no good time like the present, as Cyril has heard from Lance Viel over and over again in the short history of getting to know the victor, and he finds it equally pertaining to the conversation at hand. "Y'know, Vivian, I was actually thinking of inviting you into the Careers last night, after the interviews were over, but you disappeared before I could find you," she looks at him, but he cannot read the emotion shining in her eyes. Pity, perhaps? "Jules kicked Satin and Aris out of the alliance for their attitudes, but I knew we'd be toast without them, and you got a ten, so..."

"I don't know how I got that ten," Vivian admits, a faint blush rising on her cheeks. "I've picked up a bow here and there, sure, and I guess I'm a good runner, but I'm no Career," she picks at a scab on her arm, while Jason pushes Anahita back for pushing him, which knocks her into Maren, getting all three of them riled up. "I would've said no, Cyril. I'm not a Career."

"I figured that was the case," he smiles, stuttering an awkward laugh. "Like you said, privilege; that I'd assume someone would want to be a Career, especially just because that's what we are," Satin isn't here to chastise his decisions, but he expects Vivian could do that tenfold. "And after what happened with District Ten in the Career pack last year..." he hangs the rest of that sentence off, not needing to say anything else. He recalls yelling at his television screen for how stupid that decision seemed to be, when watching Carrion Bastion write down Victoria's name on a piece of paper, but in the end the vote didn't even matter. At least Valencia brought home the victory; that's all that mattered. "And now I just have to see if I can find Satin..." and Vivian rests a hand on his shoulder. "I'm a coward, and I know it, and she knows it too... and the last thing I've ever said to her was I didn't think we had a shot at winning the Games," he coughs into a broken laugh. "God, I'm such a _dick._"

Vivian sucks her lower lip into her mouth, as the riling behavior from their other companions seems to settle down, Ponty keeping the troublemakers apart from one another, but he's grinning, laughing, and smiling all the same. "You aren't a monster, Cyril," she says, and he looks up at her, mouth falling open slightly. "The torment is all over your face, but you aren't one," she shakes her head. "I've seen and I've fought plenty of monsters..." she shoulders the quiver on her back some, setting the bow on the ground so she can place her hands on top of it. "Rodric and I ended on some really bad terms; I said he should've drunk himself to death," Cyril searches her face for a glimpse of remorse, but he sees it in her eyes, the detached mistiness. As privileged as he is, he feels the need to judge her; he'd never say that to another person. "So... here's hoping we can all get out of this alive, and that maybe I find the closure I need," she says, trying to put a smile on her face.

Cyril doesn't know what to say, for once, finally, as it seems all the tussling is over, he handing Ponty the air cannon, as it looks like the device requires a strong amount of pressure to be placed on for it to fire. It belongs in the hands of someone he trusts; he no longer trusts his own hands. He locks eyes with Vivian, she wiping away at her cheeks, but he doesn't see any tears spilling from her eyes. Perhaps she's a crier with no outward expelling of emotion; he wishes he could be like that sometimes. She nods at him, and without another word, walks down the path from where they came from, the rest following suit.

The journey continues.

* * *

**_Seth Cables: District 5 Male P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

"So why should I support him?" is the first thing out of Seth's mouth, the moment the Master of Ceremonies, along with that fiery and hotheaded girl from Twelve enter his cell. Not a '_good morning_' or _'how are you today_', but the hard questions, the ones he's been trying to ask but never able to say.

"I beg your pardon?" Pollux frowns at him, pulling up a chair to sit across from him. Seth noteworthily makes it aware that he's scooting his own chair back, given the grind of the legs on the floor, which has the interviewer sigh exasperatedly. He won't be within two feet of the man, if he can help it, and it doesn't matter which 'side' he's on, whether it be for or against the Games, as the interviewer is just another scumbag sucking pig from the Capitol who has never had to work a day in his life, and that doesn't require a therapist or some extensive psychoanalysis, as Seth can smell it on the man and his perfumed jackets, quite literally.

"This is going to be the part where you come down here, interrogate me, and then try to convince me to join the rebel cause," Seth throws his hands up, a slight smirk on his face. "It's not the first time I've been on the receiving end, lemme just say that."

"Seth, please-" Bloom leans a bit off of the far wall, but he cuts her off with a decisive swipe of the hand, and a glare to boot.

"Save it," he interrupts her. "You're not the one in charge," and he has to hold the smile in while the tips of her ears flush a hot pink, a backsplash of color on her tan skin, but Bloom holds her trap shut, falling back into a lapsed state of silence. "If our good man Mr. Aetos here has a proposition for me, I want to hear it."

It's been around twenty-four hours or so stuck in the prison cell, but Seth wouldn't necessarily describe it as one. The room is fully see through, glass panes on all sides, and occasionally there are passerby's who will look at him whilst making their way around the cell. There's a bed, and several chairs with a table, but the table is hollow... Seth would know, as he banged his fist as hard as he could into it, and it didn't even make a dent with his punch or hurt his hand. Sometimes a few of the passerby's would look at him, maybe unwillingly, Seth smiling back at them with a crooked grin, occasionally a wave, absorbing the disgust sent back at him into his system. It seemed so easy to make others feel so repulsed, a special talent, perhaps.

Word must've gotten around for what he's done, as Valencia Shale, along with two other victors that were not Lance Viel come down... he thinks it's the guy from Six, and that blonde woman from One, who is always drunk, but there's a palpable look of disgrace passing back and forth between the occupants that are free and trapped. "_Free,_" Seth muses to himself, staring up at the prison cell roof, where the lights are on all the time as there's no light switch or person to really hear him ask for it since he can't get any sleep, "_Free is just an illusion. I'm not free, and neither are them, for they're just trapped in their own cycles._" He's never considered himself to be a wax philosopher, but hard time can make a man do things they wouldn't normally do, such as philosophize about caged animals. He feels like a caged animal, but also feels the brunt of stupidity within him.

One of the reasons that the victors had come down with Valencia is so he can learn that his head won't be exploding like the others back in the training center - he does flinch when Jules's jaw splits open like a book on the opposite side of the spine onto the floor, blood can still bother him despite what others might choose to believe - which totally does him a world of relief. Not to say he isn't slightly worried when the rain of fire falls down striking Tach, Jules, Roanoke, Magdalena, Audhild, and Zola dead that it doesn't startle him and he wonders, just for a moment that he might be next, but it has faded come morning, and he's trying to move past it. He still doesn't quite know what is going through his head when all of sudden the woman he's told to kill via the Head Peacekeeper is in front of him, and it might be the only opportunity he gets to exact some sort of revenge that doesn't exist - "_I'll never be free," he tells himself, in a singsong voice, a melodious hum - _but announcing his presence... he wipes away a bead of sweat that trickled down his forehead.

In the present moment, Pollux shakes his head, sucking on his lower lip, smoothing out a crease in his pants. Seth tilts his head to the side, trying not to give away the humor on his face, which transforms into a frown, as he sees a speck of red just barely visible on the man's left ear, almost between the outer rim and the temple. It is a trivial matter, he imagines, maybe an itch gone bad, but he's started to notice the dead giveaways, where the blood appears, and why it appears there, as constantly touching your ear is only making it more noticeable.

He pats the inside of his pant pocket, still dressed in his training uniform which is starting to smell like the musk of the dried out basement compound bunker whatever the hell he's stuck in, fishy mold and blackberries, the oddest combination Seth's ever imagined in his life. "Fine, Mr. Cables-"

"Just call me Seth," he interrupts him too, seeing Pollux's nostrils flare with visible rage. He hides the smirk under the twitch of his lip; some people are just so easily moved by the flip of a switch. "Screw the pretenses."

The Master of Ceremonies locks his jaw, eyes widening, gaze burning into one of the glass panels, before he rubs a hand down his face, holding out on his lip and extra longer than normal. Something tells Seth that this must be the first time the man in front of him as ever had to do this; although he'd rather not, he'd rather talk to Bloom, Bloom would understand him at the very least better than whatever the bozo in front of him dressed in the peppermint jacket is doing. "Y'know, _Seth,_" he says pointedly, locking eyes with the tribute, but Seth doesn't flinch; he couldn't be intimidating if he _tried, _"When I interviewed you, just last night, and saw those tears of yours, and hearing the story about your sister, I really felt moved..." he cocks his head to the side, furrowing his eyebrows together. "Now I'm starting to wonder if it was just an act."

No one talks about his sister except Seth. He grips the edge of the seat, something lightweight, and he isn't sure to the extent what fighting skills Bloom has, so he only tightens his hands around the right angles made by the chair legs. "You listen here!" he hisses, through clenched teeth, his jaw grinding like a hammer to a nail.

It is Pollux's turn to interrupt him by holding up a hand. "You didn't strike me as a murder, maybe just a tough guy who thought he was a bit more than he actually was, given how many people I've interviewed over the years for the Games," Pollux flaps one of the sides of his suit over some to cross over his lap, Seth's eyes following the movement like the flap of a wing. "So imagine my surprise when I'm told you tried murdering one of our victors... it seemed like an anti-rebel stance to do, murder someone in our rebellion... but all of you tributes were generally, for the most part, in the dark."

"Because I-" Seth goes to break in, hotly, with a heavy sigh and loud breath out through his nose, air warm on his face. He's told someone this already, the jackleg that holds him tightly by the shoulders and practically carries him down to the prison cell, the victor that is with Valencia, that Lance guy or whatever. Seth knows fighting out of it is futile, and he can't reach the blade that he had placed underneath his pant leg, but he doesn't like the pressure being applied. It's the story he tells, of Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro sending him the letter, and the rock and the hard place he's stuck between. Certainly someone, _somewhere _would find reason in that.

"We saw it, we all read it," the interviewer says, but this time a lot more gentle. "And we understand."

"You- you do?" Seth sits up in his chair, unable to hide the little boyish tone that rises with his inflection, eyebrows rising up with his own body. He half expects Bloom to be acting as the executioner, from the way he's sitting in the chair. This is news to his ears, if he can be honest.

"A rock and a hard place, right?"

"Yeah... yeah," he nods feverishly back at him.

That is what District 5 is made of, rocks and hard places, and the choices that have toe that dangerous line every night, whether he wants to or not. His mind is not made the math geeks and science nerds of Panem, to understand the complexities of biology or calculus mixed in with chemistry, let alone aerodynamics or physics or whatever the hell is being taught. As he watches his parents sink into a bubble of depression, as if they were drowning in mud, no cries for help coming from within them, Seth knows that it's on him, as he puts the ashes of his sister to rest. Working the menial slavery jobs of Five, if you aren't an intelligent scientist... that isn't the life for him, until that woman with that very trusting proposition came knocking on his door step, the moment before he had been intending on ending Sophiana Delarosa's pathetic, miserable little excuse for a life...

"We're offering you a choice," Bloom pipes up, she having pulled her long dark hair into a ponytail, twirling a few strands around her fingers. "If you want, if you _really _want, we'll send you back to the president, and she can decide what to do with you," Seth wouldn't do that, something tells him that receiving the letter from Head Peacekeeper Pietro had been something done covertly, but perhaps not very well done, as anyone in their right mind can see the love and adoration the president has for Valencia Shale, although he still cannot quite figure out why. "Or you stay here, and then you have two more options."

"And what would those be?"

"Sit here and rot," he can tell that the girl from Twelve does not hide the slight glee that bubbles up in her voice, but he almost can't blame her. How many years have District 12 been the downtrodden, so getting the upper hand on someone? He can taste it on his tongue, a ripe strawberry and passion fruit mixing in his mouth. "And await for trial once we win, or you can fight for us now and receive amnesty," Bloom picks at a piece of cotton off of her shirt, some sort of ugly olive colored thing, but Seth leans back in his chair.

He's still robbed of his free will, he realizes, without a moment's hesitation. Go back to a woman or empire that'd surely execute him and gladly have him in their clutches, since he's a tribute... stay behind and let the world decide his fate, which would be death for the crimes he's committed, or fight in a cause with a high chance of death. Go figure. But... _amnesty. _

"I don't want your pity," he barks back, and then clamps down on his tongue. That isn't what he means to say, what he wants to say is that the offer feels like pity, pity on a 'troubled' soul wronged by the system, but he knows what walk of life he's found himself surrounded in, a life of crime and paranoia and constantly looking over your shoulder.

"It's not pity," Pollux interjects, but there isn't a single edge to his tone either, despite the hostility flowing between the two tributes. The interviewer scratches the back of his neck, smiling sheepishly. "I did say to you all that we needed every hand we can get... and well, I wasn't lying. You're a young man, healthy, can fight well if your training score is any indicator-" _With guns, _Seth wants to interject, but he holds his peace. "And Rennie wants you too, but I can't imagine why."

Rennie. The Avox, the one who is supposed to lead the people of the promised land. He recalls reading about someone who did that, for some sort of ancient people in some faded book he finds on his father's desk, but Seth isn't sure what it is, to be fair, and the text is monstrously boring as he flits through a few pages. How is a man who has no tongue supposed to save Panem from itself? Can the country even be saved? Seth can't hold the scoff in, making a _tch _noise in his throat, before turning his face to the side.

"What?" Bloom asks, defensively, crossing her arms.

"I asked, when you two came in here, why I should support him, this Rennie guy," Seth motions with his hands in some circular fashion, just to fill the space. "Why should I feel compelled to lay my life down for him? What's he got that is so different from the person ruling us now?" He crosses his arms, trying to once again hide the smirk that threatens to appear under his twitching lip. It is a simple question, as he's seen the video that the Avox put out on the airways during the reaping, of the dirty laundry coming from the Rodney administration, and that the president beforehand had been trying to end the Games, something he'd take in a heartbeat, before the man is murdered by the very same woman sitting on that porcelain throne of hers in the palace locked away by iron wrought gates.

"He's going to end the Hunger Games, for one," Pollux says. "I used to be against the idea myself, but I eventually came around to it."

"He's not the first person to ever offer it," the tribute from Five points out. He's seen it and heard it all in his seventeen short years, of people claiming to be freedom fighters rising through the ranks in whatever ways they know how, through the smoke and the smog of whatever hogwash district they hail from, before the guillotine comes from their head, slicing the root from the stem, and the flame dissipating as if it had never even existed in the first place.

"That's because Rennie isn't just offering it," the interviewer replies, but there's a smirk on his face too, now. It's an infection, a good kind, Seth likes to imagine, to make people smirk with feigned confidence acting as support. "He's going to do it."

"If he wins."

"Not if," Bloom takes a step forward, unsticking herself off of the glass wall to the cell. "_When_."

"You don't know that," Seth shakes his head, looking at the Master of Ceremonies directly in the face. "You seriously think you guys have a shot at beating the president and ending the Games? Didn't Thirteen already try that years ago and got squashed?"

"We don't think it," Pollux shakes his head in dissent. "We _know_ it. I know it, and I'm the biggest doubter of the truth that I know..." he taps his fingers on the side of the chair. "What's it going to be, Mr. Cables?"

"Seth..." Bloom says his name, but he refuses to look at her. She doesn't deserve his attention. "Just think about it. Don't- don't throw your life away."

If he agrees to fight in the rebellion, is he throwing his life away? Seth chews on the inside of his lip, tearing away at the skin, feeling the copper fluid flush the basin of his mouth, tasting the tartness on his tongue. He's tasted the tartness, and he's smelled it too, clogging up his nostrils, a ledger filled to the brim with it. A life wasting away from the decisions of others, doing others biddings and then taking matters into his own hands... but again, _is he truly free? Will he ever see the real sunlight again, liquid ivory doused down his cheeks and tongue? _Seth curls a hand into a fist, bringing it to his chin, and then back again to the chair, in a winding motion almost, like winching a clock.

Screw it.

Time to take matters into his own hands.

"Fine..." he says, after a belabored pause, the moment Seth speaks causing the tension in the room to pop with a sizzle. Pollux and Bloom's faces visibly relax, too, and she gives the interviewer a coy grin. "Not because I like any of you, though," he adds, Seth making a face. "I'm doing it just for me. You clear?"

It's time Seth Cables answered the call, and stepped up to the plate.

* * *

**_Amaris O'Hara: District 6 Female P.O.V_**

* * *

She's not sure whether or not to be happy about the missive that crosses her lap. Well, it doesn't exactly cross her lap, for it's more of a stern order that Head Peacekeeper Lazarus barks at her and Aris, to do something with their lazy asses while waiting for the forces at the edge of the city to surge forward. Aris is bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, she resisting the urge to roll his eyes or smack him silly, or even both, as that seems rather favorable too. It is simple enough, she imagines, as there hasn't been any reaction from the rebel side with Rodric's execution that they're given the go ahead to do their plan, but even still, the brim of excitement is turning into a more slugged anxiety that settles over her arms, trapping her in a cocoon of nervousness. Amaris O'Hara is not a nervous person, never has been.

There's a ping somewhere in the northeastern part of the city, just under a half mile or so from the remains of the would be training center in one of the maintenance tunnels, which has Lazarus scratching his head, for the president is off somewhere in the mansion doing _something, _but Amaris isn't quite sure what, nor truthfully if she really cares. She's never interacted with anyone in the presidency before this morning, at four AM with Aris dragging her along, and she's exhausted... her work has been with the Lazarus's of Panem, men who think they've grown too big for the underwear holding them up, fulfilling some sort of egotistical need in creating an exaggerated self-importance. Like the idiot currently walking next to her.

It's an extraction, to find the tributes down below in the maintenance tunnels that caused the Peacekeeper substation to go green. Everyone else but her believes it's rebels, but something hints at it being tributes... she's not entirely sure on why, but she can feel it, like a brewing storm within her stomach, churning the acidic waters over to capsize the organs inside. There's a heat signature picked up on one of the maps, a technician notes it, at the same area the substation exists, Amaris immediately recognizing it. A weapon's heat signature, from the firing of some sort of weapon... all the assorted rebels from the districts are at the edge of the city, and this signature is from everywhere else but the far fringes. No Capitol rebel would be stupid enough to fire a Peacekeeper weapon.

So, with all that is left, there's a tribute, as all of them are not accounted for. Amaris knows that, according to sources who swear they say a group of victors escorting six scared, frightened little kids, that Seth, Bloom, Vanya, Sage, Cambric, and Ciphra make up that group. Mirek has been found and thrown in a prison cell, there are accounts of Sophiana laying in the middle of the street with a bullet in her brain, and Satin still hasn't been found... so by process of elimination that means there's Cyril, Maren, Anahita, Ponty, Jason, and Vivian down in that maintenance tunnel, or a collection of them at the very least. Amaris's mouth goes dry at the thought of seeing Ponty again; part of her hopes this entire thing ends with him lying comatose in a ditch somewhere, or maybe blown up with an explosive strapped to his chest, parts littering the cream colored stone of Gamemaker's Square. The idea of seeing him again, let alone others that she certainly feels a briskness from, it hasn't made her very excited. Unlike Aris next to her, who seems he's about to explode.

It is the two of them, with five other Peacekeepers in the squad, as that is what is afforded to her. Lazarus shoves a gun into her hands, a stern expression on his face. "_I'm putting you in charge of this,_" he tells her, and she's never seen a more cold blue. "_Don't screw this up. Soldier O'Hara, you are the leader of this squad, and the retrieval of those six tributes. Use whatever means are necessary."_

_"I won't let you down, sir," she tells him, but there's no confidence in her voice._ Amaris O'Hara is a confident person through and through, always has been.

She can only wonder how the other men in the force are feeling, let alone thinking, watching two kids who have no understanding of the terrain or the city leading men who've lived in the Capitol their entire life, most like... her train of thought is derailed as Aris races forward to the maintenance tunnel entrance, one of many found throughout the city. He rips it open with glee, he holding his helmet underneath his arm, hair sticking out in silly strands, a messy agglomeration of bright color amidst the calcite gray of the tunnel walls. He's about to take a leap into the pit when Amaris races forward, grabbing him by the hand, wrenching him back. Amaris debates, just for a second, on letting him go... that'd be ironic, wouldn't it? Letting him fall to his death to potentially break his neck? She'd chalk that up to a war casualty, with nothing to be seen there.

"What?" he asks, defensively, resting his helmet just on top of his skull, as if it were a hat. She holds back on the laughter threatening to erupt from her throat, holding the stern expression that crosses her face.

"I'm leading this mission, not you," she tells him, poking him in the chest for emphasis, a scowl flashing across his face. "Don't you forget it, Aris."

Aris makes air quotes at her, eyes sparkling in mischief. "Yeah, 'leading the mission', commander O'Hara," he mocks her, Amaris's nostrils flaring in annoyance. "Please, give me a break. I saw you during Rodric's execution. You couldn't even look at him."

"I didn't want to watch," Amaris declares hotly, resisting the urge to tilt her head up in disdain. Hearing the crack of her fellow tribute's neck is enough. She forgets from time to time that she is dealing with a Career on her hands here, a man with no sympathy for the world, a sympathy only dealing in killing... why is she expecting rationality out of him? She's fought her own demons, and she likes killing, having admitted it to Ponty stupidly on that train ride, but in the wicked people who deserve it. Do any of them down in the tunnel deserve it? Her mind briefly flashes Ponty's name across her face, but she blinks it away, clamping down on her tongue. "Do you really think being a Peacekeeper is all about murder, Aris? It's much more than that. _We're_ more than that."

"They deserve to die-" he goes to say, but she's not going to have that sort of talk just running rampant around her, nor the squadron in the back, they finally catching up to the tribute pair, as Aris had taken off like a bottle rocket towards the entrance.

She grips down on his wrist, pressing her thumb into his pressure point, he hissing due to the sudden drawl of pain, but he does not crumple under her grip. "They aren't the enemy, Aris. They're just trying to survive," _Just like me,_ her mind immediately adds, but she doesn't say that aloud. "We're simply taking them into custody, and if they fight back, we _don't_ kill them." A white lie might be needed every once in awhile. When she signs up to be part of the Peacekeeper force, in which she's laughed at out of the building back in Six the first time she arrives, it is not to go on killing sprees and take people down just for the hell of it, but to satisfy the voice in her head that demands for blood to be spilled and run down her hands. Yes, Lazarus mentioned 'whatever force is necessary', and she can tell Aris will take that to the nth degree of extremism, but there's been a lot of corpses floating in the breeze lately; minimizing it feels to be the smartest decision on the board.

He wrenches his hand out of her grip, rubbing it with another scowl. "Whatever, Amaris."

"I don't know what you think this is; it isn't dress-up," she tells him, trying to quell the fury rising in her veins. It is the fury that causes her to hit Ponty in the face, or threaten to break his face in against a window, it is fury and impatience and being caught up in the moment that has her go along with Aris to the president. "This is war, and it is a lot more dangerous than a stupid arena. You specifically took me with you to Bonnie to serve, and this is how we've been told to serve," Amaris rights herself, holding onto the pistol Lazarus hands her. "Besides, you really think the others are happy they're being led by two kids?" Aris's eyes widen, going to protest as he opens his mouth, but she overrides him. "We're kids, Aris, and we're ordering men in their forties on what to do."

"Well, if you don't want to lead, just give it to me," Aris bites back. She nearly pushes him in, but settles for the more diplomatic route.

"Just get in the tunnel and shut the fuck up, Aris," Amaris scowls back at him, before putting on her helmet, making sure the visor is able to flipped up or not.

He doesn't say anything else to her, going down the ladder into the tunnel like the good little follower he is, Amaris able to read his face whenever he looks at her, seeing all of the things he can say through his eyes. Amaris looks back at the other five Peacekeepers with them, nodding and stepping aside for them to go first. A leader always goes last, to scope out for the others, potential exits, potential enemies... watching is half the battle. When the last member excluding her enters the tunnel, she makes her way to the ladder, it being an iron wrung thing completely taken away by rust. She recoils away from it slightly, left foot slipping slightly, so she drops the rest of the way, just about a two foot drop. Amaris shakes off a few chipped bits of rust that stuck to her glove, shuddering, glad to have that protection between her.

There's a tunnel system under District 6's poorer side of the district, she having seen it before, on one of her brief stints in staying in Six versus traveling to Eleven. Eleven is a wide open field of groves for oranges, apple orchards, strawberry fields and then a collection of houses at the edge of the city, covered in a light thin layer of dust. Six looks like crap everywhere she goes, shacks upon shacks pushed together with a thin line of grease connecting each brick, the air smelling of weed of bubbling meth, or Peacekeeper gun shots... is it any wonder she hasn't stayed in Six to do her job?

Amaris grinds her boots directly into the ground, wiping away some of the puddle she steps in after landing on her feet. Surprisingly, as it is not her decision, but Aris's, that they, instead of going directly to where the station had been alerted, to go ahead of it by a few paces, to run into the tributes directly. She goes to argue the point, but then that it just arguing to be difficult, she trying to move past that, for it looks like her companion from Two thrives on arguing, while Ponty would get by with rationalization.

If her assumptions were correct, in which Amaris has found herself being right a vast majority of the time, they'd be coming across the group any second now, the ping happening just forty minutes ago, and the maintenance tunnels being windier than a mountain slope. She finds the tunnels to be eerily cold, feeling the nipping temperatures through her suits, but they haven't ever been the most comforting or warm attire. Amaris personally just wants to find something different to wear than the Peacekeeper attire, as it isn't every single piece of her soul, it's just her job... but maybe her job is her soul. She isn't sure.

The girl from Six pushes to the lead of the pack, holding up a fist, everyone behind her coming to a halt. She can hear it, the faintest trickle of noise rounding a corner. She can tell that the room is starting to expand, through the dimly lit corridors, as she can't see the other wall clearly, whereas she could probably kick it with her boot if it were any other section of the tunnels. _Great. _Bigger rooms means a harder combat space, goosebumps starting to erupt over her arms underneath the suit. It's a girl's voice, a higher pitched voice, most certainly young. _Anahita. _Amaris cannot make the words out too clearly, but can feel her eyes threatening to bulge out of her face. If this had been an arena, she might've considered Anahita to be prey, but she hadn't factored in what Aris would do. According to him, the girl from Four is the reason most of his problems have started, all due to her age. She thinks he needs to let it go.

She looks over at Aris, who has taken up her six, he holding onto the end of his gun as well, and something metallic, it glowing silver, sticking out of his pocket. She saw Lazarus hand it to him back at the base, but she doesn't question what it is... it looks like a baton stick of some sorts. Why would he be armed with a more conventional weapon? Amaris sticks her head out around the corner, reeling back immediately after, her heartbeat pulsating under her chest. There's all six of them, alright, and it looks like the girl from Ten, Vivian is in the lead. And they're all armed.

"Shit..." Amaris mutters to herself. She hadn't anticipated that. How would any of them have had access to the weapons rack before the center had come collapsing down around them? She sees a spear, a sword, a bow and arrow... those wouldn't be Peacekeeper weapons, but arena weapons. Would they have kept the weapon found at the Peacekeeper substation with them? She shakes her head, frowning to herself. Now is not the time for doubt or questioning her decision making. She's been told to do a job, and come hell or high water if she doesn't perform. Amaris grits her teeth together, looking back at Aris. "Remember, no casualties." His eyes flash in annoyance as she speaks, but there's no room for arguing. The girl from Six raises another fist, before opening it to her palm, turning it around for the other Peacekeepers to see.

_Follow my lead._

She rounds the corner, cocking her pistol, holding it level with Vivian's shoulder. Before she speaks, her eyes look past the group, who have their backs turned, walking towards another corridor, and at the end of that corridor is a door. She knows where that door leads, down to the sewers, as one of the pathways, if they're lucky and don't get themselves turned around. The Gamemaker corner of the city, and all the water in her mouth dries up. No one's been able to get in contact with Head Gamemaker Fallorne, and Madam Rodney hasn't found a way to extrapolate resources to send someone to check on her... for she assumes the old woman is doing just fine as is.

Amaris flips open her visor, it making a slight clicking noise, and she sees Vivian, just barely through the dark, tense. "That's far enough, guys!" she calls out, her voice echoing along the tunnel walls.

"Way to be subtle," Aris mutters to her, as the group in front of her turn, weapons in their hands. A Peacekeeper next to her flips a light switch on the wall, the room being washed over in a flood of ivory, a white sheen falling onto the others, Amaris shielding her eyes.

"Amaris?" Ponty bridges the conversation first, taking a step closer to them, something tucked under his arm, but Amaris can only see a slight glimpse of it, it looking round underneath the crook of his elbow, glimmering like Aris's baton. "Aris?" he adds next, as her partner in crime lifts his visor up too.

"Ah, a Peacekeeper greeting," Vivian smiles at them, holding her arms out. "You're gonna escort us out of here?"

"Viv," Cyril buts in, but it is Amaris that is reeling. Did he just call her _Viv? _She can see the girl in question look at him a bit funny too. "Perhaps it is not the time to antagonize them, you think?"

"I'd listen to Cyril," Amaris ventures forward, taking a step towards them. "I've been given orders to take you back to President Rodney, and if we can do this as peaceful as we can, no one has to get hurt. She's promised nothing but safety for your passage," Frankly she knows half of what she's said has been potentially bullshit, for Rodric Oxford is simply to be a 'guest' in the Rodney administration, turned hostage by the call of the morning, turned corpse by mid-afternoon. It is starting to get late, nearing five in the afternoon, and when the sun goes down, that is when Bonnie and Lazarus were to command mobilization, the moving of forces to combat the rebel forces at the edge of the city, potentially pushing to an apex somewhere near Gamemaker's Square.

"You can take her order and shove it up her ass," Maren spits back at her, Aris's face twisting in silent rage. "She tried to have us all killed, and you're going to stand there and support her?"

"It's that or die," Aris counteracts her point, and Amaris can hear the tightening of his glove on his pistol. "And you don't strike me as being someone who wants to die."

"I'm only offering this once," Amaris says, her feet making splash noises as she steps into another puddle coming from the room.

Vivian lifts her head up, eyes narrowing at her, and a smirk growing on her face. "Who said this was a negotiation? And who said anything about chances?"

Before Amaris can really process what is happening, the girl from Ten wrenches an arrow free out of the quiver on her back, sending it down the tunnel. She can see the arrow before it hits the wall next to her, chaos taking hold of the occupants in the hall. Aris fires a shot at her, but Ponty pulls the girl back, standing behind a column. Amaris makes a fan-out motion with her hands, the Peacekeepers on the side flocking out like a group of birds, rifles trained on the columns erected in the center of the room. She goes to take another step when the lights fizzle out again, as if someone had run into the light switch, but she sees exactly what it is just down the causeway... Maren's axe embedded into the light fixture, shattering it to pieces.

One of her soldiers by her side digs into their pocket for a flare, he igniting it, and not a moment later, a knife is embedded directly into the visor, it splattering with a splash of crimson. An animalistic yell rips through the tunnel, and out of the corner of her eye, Amaris witness Anahita dart out of the darkness and tumble into Aris, a blade in her hand, she thrusting with a stabbing motion down at him. He grunts in surprise, the others whirling in surprise to see where the sound is coming from, as Amaris can hardly see three feet in front of her. Anahita yells out a scream of bloody murder as she lifts her hand up, going to stab Aris in the face when he blocks the strike with his arm, holding Anahita up, barely. She yells at him, mouth wide and stretched open in a scream, going to move again, when he kicks her off of him.

She goes sailing back into the darkness, Aris getting to his feet, grabbing his pistol which had been kicked off against the wall. With a growl, he fires two shots randomly in the dark, marbles hitting walls, and bouncing from side to side. There's a glint of silver out of the darkness, Amaris yelping in fright as an arc of metal comes sailing for her. Maren grits her teeth at her, swinging the axe at her again, she just barely scooting out of the way. Amaris rips the knife free out of her pant leg, another gift from Lazarus, she diving forward with it a bit recklessly. It snags onto part of Maren's shirt, slicing her open just above the arm, but nothing more than a shallow cut... not enough to put anyone out of commission. An arrow sails over her head, pinning one of the other Peacekeepers in the leg, the man crying out in pain, falling back behind further cover.

Maren tries reaching for Amaris's helmet, to rip it off perhaps, but this is where she excels, the physical fighting. She drops the knife, grabbing the Career's hand and twisting. There's a crunch of some kind, the girl on the receiving end swallowing a heavy scream, before headbutting Amaris in the face. She sees stars for a moment, falling back, letting go of Maren, to recuperate herself, the Career slithering back into the darkness, taking the axe with her. The girl from Six crawls over to the flare, it still hissing and burning on the ground, illuminating one of the walls in a tinge of crimson. She yells out in fright again as she sees Cyril mesh out of the black, sword in hand, stabbing a Peacekeeper straight in the gut, the man having been distracted by aiming his sights on Jason, who was ripping something free out of the wall. Cyril slashes the sword across the Peacekeeper's chest, the man falling back, before Cyril stabs him in the face, a look of pure evil radiating off of the Career's face.

Amaris gets to her feet, Aris running by her side, nursing a wound on his elbow, but it doesn't look too serious. A Peacekeeper, the only one who isn't dead or injured, joins them shortly thereafter, and she sees the last one limping towards them. Down the causeway though, at the end of the hall, for Amaris cannot find her gun, she sees Vivian and Ponty talking together, he holding onto that cylindrical item she couldn't quite figure out. _The Peacekeeper weapon. _

"Do it now!" Vivian yells at him, and Amaris sees Ponty raise something high, a hammer or club of sorts, before hitting the weapon. It begins to glow red hot, rising, expanding, in the perfect line of sight for the Peacekeeper hobbling towards them.

"Get down!" Amaris screams at him, but his reaction is too late, the cannon in Ponty's hands firing, it flying out of his hands and wobbling around on the floor. A powerful gust of air, tornado speeds truthfully, soars through the tunnel, extinguishing the flare, picking up her fellow Peacekeeper and flinging him across the room. He never gets a last word out of the ordeal, for he smashes into the opposite side of the room, brain matter and blood exploding everywhere, she gagging at the sight, having to turn away.

There's a loud commotion on the other end, as Cyril, with Ponty's help, rips open the door to the sewer system, everyone starting to run into it, getting away. Jason is arguing with Vivian, Amaris unable to hear the words being said as the thaw of shock settles over her skin, but then Jason pushes Vivian into the blackness, slamming the door shut, holding onto the Peacekeeper weapon. A diversion. Letting the others get away... self-sacrifice, huh? Amaris will not let him have that glory. Aris, however, is much farther ahead of her she supposes, as he stalks towards the boy from Nine, who has long abandoned his spear.

The Career rips the staff out of his pocket, pressing his fingers down onto the two ends, the rod expanding until it is three feet long. Jason strikes the weapon in his hands as hard as he can, Amaris's feet squeaking on the ground, splashing in the puddles as she prepares herself to leap, to take Aris out of harms way, when Aris raises the staff and strikes Jason in the side of the head. He looks stunned for a second, eyes seeing stars, and then the boy collapses, and the weapon falls from his hands, rattling like a hollow can until it rests on the side.

"Aris!" Amaris spits out, almost out of shock, as if she can't help herself.

He looks back at her, seething rage pouring out from his body, breathing heavily, while the one alive Peacekeeper in the squad follows over to them. "This is all your fault. Had you not announced your arrival, we could've caught them off guard, but now they've escaped, and we've got the least valuable one," Aris says in disgust, looking down at Jason's limp body, the boy from Nine having fallen unconscious from the hit. He's right, but Amaris doesn't want to listen to him. "Have him take Jason back to base; we should follow them."

"No," she refuses the idea of a suicide mission, as long as she still has her wits. "They just delivered themselves personally to Constantine's hell; they won't survive for long down there," she looks back, ruefully, at the three Peacekeeper bodies laying in the puddles, one with a knife in their face, one with their brains blown out all over the wall, and one with their body cut up. "We'll need to take the dead back, anyways," and then down at Jason, "And him. I'd argue he's the most valuable; his father is the mayor of Nine, and we know he's here in the city with the rebels."

She tries to hide the disappointment in her voice, but all she can think of now is the failure she's committed. The atrocity that has just happened in front of her eyes, culminating in disaster.

Amaris O'Hara has not stepped up to the plate.

* * *

**_Satin Spinel: District 1 Female P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

Keep pushing. Stay alive. Keep pushing. Stay alive. That is what she's been telling herself over and over again. The more she says it, however, the less and less she believes it. Satin feels her heart drum beneath her training uniform, unable to find anything else to put on, after racing recklessly into the night. Her hands grip onto the edges of the stairwell, cold metal to her warm palms, sweat pouring down her arms, a stickiness coagulating on her legs as the uniform clings to her body. It's way too hot for this sort of exercise, but the nice and sweet gentlemen on her tail would beg to differ. She thought she had been careful, not walking out in the middle of the street, which is now abandoned and lifeless unlike the uproar in which the city had been alive after the interviews. She enters through a wrong door, going out the wrong back exit, and straight into a squad of Peacekeepers.

She's unarmed, unable to find a weapon to protect herself with, and she knows she isn't a scrapper against the white scarab beetles who have guns, and asking them nicely to leave her alone won't do the trick either. Satin has no idea where she's going, but anywhere away from the epicenter of the city will work perfectly too. She simply wants to get away, to leave the action behind, settle down in someone's house who'll gladly take her in to have a Career staying with them, and wait for it all to pass over. "_That's funny,_" she tells herself, with a sly giggle. "_I call Cyril a coward, yet here I am running away from the situation._" She doesn't have the time to exactly work out the nuances of the situation, more focused on trying to keep her blonde hair out of her eyes, and from her body slipping on the stairs.

Satin reaches the top of the staircase, pushing through the door onto a roof top of some apartment building, the closest escape route she could find away from the Peacekeepers. She can hear their heavy boots on the stairwell, clunking pieces of machinery with the ends of their rifles on the railings. There's currently just one of them in pursuit, the other going to find help, as if he has to go far for it. She can hear him talking on his earpiece, pursuing Subject 2 - "_Well, Subject 2 has a name, dickweed,_" Satin hisses to herself in her head, on foot up a flight of stairs. She looks over the edge of the roof, the other building being about fifteen feet apart from her, at a lower elevation however, and she can see a hatch shining in the sunlight. That's her goal... but that's a long way.

The sounds of the man's footsteps are getting closer, Satin running and slamming the door shut. There's an open can of black paint resting down on the ground, with a brush half dipped into it, and the wall being half painted in an abyss black or snowstorm white on the other end. She holds onto the pail with both hands, kicking the brush aside. The Peacekeeper's voice gets closer and closer, at the first sign of white, she leapt into action. Satin sprung out into the center of the doorway, throwing the can at him. The Peacekeeper jumps in surprise, and then a wave of black splashes over the visor, obstructing his vision immediately. Satin turns the can of paint upside down and dumps the remainder of it on the ground, as the man behind her struggles to wipe his visor clear.

Her heart beat rises to a fever pitch in her head. She can feel Cyril's hands on her shoulders, guiding her through her breathing exercises, feeling a bubble of panic rise in her veins. She had been one of the only tributes to beat the running gauntlet in the training center, and the only Career to do so... she's a _Career, _dammit, and Careers can do anything they put their mind to. She breathes in, exhaling heavily, and without looking behind her to see if the Peacekeeper has recovered, she takes a running head start for the edge of the roof. The Peacekeeper, who must've wiped his visor clean by then, calls out after her, yelling at her to stop. _Keep pushing. Stay alive. Keep pushing. Stay alive. _So far, she's doing pretty good with that record.

Satin leaps off of the roof with a shout, her left shoe catching barely on the lip of gravel sticking out. She stumbles some, losing air on her leap, and the panic rises back into her system. The other roof seems to get smaller and smaller, the hopes of reaching it crumbling like a sandcastle hit by a thundering wave. Satin sees the ground approaching rapidly, and with it, certain doom surely. Just as she's about to collide with a dumpster, which would probably break her shin in three, her hands just barely grasp onto the rings of a ladder hanging out of the side, it attached to a fire escape on the side of the building. A surprised croak bubbles in her throat, Satin's body swinging back and forth like a loose branch in the wind. The rung is a vermillion color, and it must be freshly painted too, as when she struggles to hoist herself up further, her palm comes away stained red.

She grits her teeth, hissing in pain from the protest of her knees, which crack and pop as she continues to move. She doesn't dare look back at the other building, knowing that if she does, the anxiety will rise back even worse than before, and she'll be left as a hyperventilating mess with no one to help calm her down. That is the one thing Cyril knew how to do, not that she's sure he'd remember, and she isn't about to bust into someone else's room or apartment to help soothe her nerves; that'd only extrapolate them. Satin makes her way up to the next rung, before pulling herself onto the fire escape, pressing her body into the cold metal. She needs a moment to catch her breath, thinking back to the physical fitness tests that'd have her seeing stars after running two miles in less than twenty minutes, knocking them out in just under twelve minutes, a mile every six. If she had one of her knives with her, this wouldn't be a problem.

"This..." she says, but the words come out heavy, husky, she sounding like a man who's been smoking for years instead. "Is _fucked. _Capital F." She knows she's not speaking to anyone, not there is anyone to hear her, but she needs to hear her own voice. Satin turns her head to the side, looking up at the other building, righting herself immediately as the Peacekeeper who had been pursuing her makes it to the edge, the man having lifted his visor up to scan the area. The two of them lock eyes, and the Peacekeeper levies his gun at her. Her body kicks itself into high gear once again, scrambling up the steps to the fire escape. The Peacekeeper on the other side fires, and Satin hears the whistle of a projectile on the wind, it embedding into the wall a foot in front of her. It isn't a bullet, like she expects, looking at the spot.

It's a dart.

They aren't trying to kill her, as far as she can tell. Incapacitation, perhaps. She's tried that before, and it isn't for her.

Satin gets to her feet, racing onto the other the top of the other roof, ducking as another dart is fired her way. She lugs herself over the top of it, setting herself down, low to the floor. The Peacekeeper on the other end retracts himself away from the wall; he's way too burly to try and make that jump. She almost calls out at him, to encourage him to take a shot, but that's how she's gotten herself into this mess as it is. It had been simple, running out the way she had come, away from the plume of smoke that still rises from the collapsed training center... out of the frying pan and into the fire. In what might be a skewed set of priorities, part of her is upset that she doesn't get to appreciate the beauty of the Capitol, it being incapable to do so just from the training center, not high enough for being on the first floor... and now she's a fugitive in what would be her safe zone.

She presses herself further into the grainy material of the roof, closing her eyes. For a second, for a split second, she can hear her boyfriend's voice in her head, a voice that is not at all like Cyril's, but sturdy, defiant, and _sexy. _She can feel his arms wrapping her tight, his breath on his neck, but then she squirms out of the thought, trying to keep her head from bringing up the memory of saying goodbye to him in the Justice Building. In some sort of convoluted way, she's been with her cousin for the latter part of a year, trying to keep the vomit from expelling from her throat all over the leather couches, and all over him, but it is something neither she nor him were told until her own father comes in to say goodbye as well, taking manicured hands in his, which are starting to wrinkle.

It has taught her one thing, however, as she thinks about the relationship with her cousin - still unable to resist the shudder - and that is to expect the unexpected. If she is always expecting it, she will never be surprised, she'll never be caught off guard... she could tackle whatever would come her way.

Satin sits up, looking at her elbows. Colliding with the latter, and resting atop the fire escape... it's scrapped her elbows open, they starting to bleed and crack open like a split Earth. She gets to her feet, dusting her legs off, trying to not focus on the slight stinging of pain emanating from her body. She makes her way over to the hatch, ripping it open, peering down into the stairwell. It's another apartment, although it only looks to be about three floors rather than the five floors of the other one she races up to the top of. She still has no idea where she's going, but it doesn't matter; _keep pushing. Stay alive._

"Keep pushing..." she tells herself, taking a shaky breath. "Stay alive."

Satin dips her leg in, scooting over to rest on the rim of the hatch, before slinking herself down through it and to the bottom. She collides with the tiled floor down beneath her with a soft clatter, but not too much noise comes from the fall. She rights herself up, a smile crossing her lips. The last she saw of that Peacekeeper had been one of disappointment, and all she has to do is keep moving. If she keeps moving, then she can't be caught, and if she can't be caught... the goalie zone sparkles on the horizon for her. Satin turns her head to the left, seeing that it's just a dead end to a window, and if she starts breaking things, that'll rouse unwanted attention.

She turns her head to the right, and the water in her mouth dries up, as she stares directly at her own reflection, from the Peacekeeper making their way towards her, and he holding onto another rifle, but she's unable to tell if there's bullets or darts in it.

The man stops at the edge of the hallway where the carpet turns to tile, like the tile she's standing on, and if she's fast enough, she could leap over the banister and onto the second floor, but that'd require semi-perfect timing, and she's not some athletic gymnast with the ability to freeze time.

"Hello, sweetheart," the Peacekeeper smiles at her, Satin's entire body itching as if someone doused her in insects, millipede and centipede legs crawling all over her. "Where did you think you were going, huh?"

She doesn't give him the satisfaction of a response, her body tensing to spring forward, when the door behind her, presumably to someone's apartment of an individual forced on lockdown, opens. Satin catches the glimpse of white in a bulking form out of the corner of her eye, and the quickening heartbeat hastes its return, along with the shortness of breath. Something comes to alive in the second Peacekeeper's hand, a low hum that steadily rises in pitch, similar to her heartbeat, and Satin makes a break for it.

Two pairs of hands clamp at her arms and at her shoulders, holding her back, the humming getting louder and louder. Very faintly, through her peripherals, Satin can see blue sparks, electric raspberry blue in color, darting out and onto the wall, making singe marks where they land. "_Fucked,_" she thinks to herself, with a snarl. "_Definite capital F._"

The Peacekeeper holding her by the back presses the taser to the back of her neck, jolts of electricity flowing through Satin's body. She shakes in their grip, feeling as her skin hums alive with the coursing waves of energy, falling lax out of their grips and onto the tile.

The last she sees is both of the Peacekeepers flipping their visors up to look at her, with wicked grins on their faces, before the black ants burrow themselves into her vision.

* * *

**_Ciphra Longsdale: District 3 Female P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

Well, it is official; Ciphra Longsdale has no idea what the world is coming to, if, of all people, Seth Cables agrees to fight for a cause not out of his own self-interest. She's sitting in command, elbows bouncing on and off the counter she's resting against, looking over occasionally at Criston Pellock, the victor from Six, he bent over a computer, muttering to himself. There isn't really anything to do, what with half the compound heading out to fight and die in blazes of glory, and Ciphra has been told she's forbidden from leaving, but she imagines it is for the best. She isn't a fighter, never has been, and going around shooting from guns does not speak to her and excite her like it might've a few years ago. She hugs Sage and Cambric goodbye, as tight as she could, latching onto them, eyes squeezed shut, and they hugged her back.

With Vanya and Bloom staying behind, she doesn't feel entirely alone, but with Sage and Cambric, it's different, too. They've witnessed Roanoke and Magdalena die before their very eyes, and their volunteering themselves to face an enemy, a woman, with no moral compass, where everything's off the table, and anything can happen. She doesn't envy them. She does shake Seth's hand, rather awkwardly or clumsily if she were to be asked to recollect how the encounter went, but doesn't feel torn up about seeing him go. Not that Vanya and Bloom don't understand what is happening, especially with Vanya losing Zola, but she feels it differently with the other two... a connection that is not necessarily shared by the others. Bloom mutters something to her about going and practicing with a few of the blades down below in the training facility, and Vanya saying out loud to anyone who'd listen that he's to take a nap, leaving Ciphra on the ground floor all alone.

The only people there of interest, that she's spoken to, are Criston, and the Master of Ceremonies. She sees the victor trio of Hale Cornerstone, Hector Merviere, and Kevia Janelle depart just a couple of hours before the mass of soldiers and personnel take off too, as their fearless leader Rennie leads the charge, with Valencia Shale and Lance Viel bringing up the rear. It doesn't hit her until a few hours later, when the sun has dipped beneath the sky, painting it in alternative bands of pitch black and serene navy blue, that she might not see any of them again. It doesn't hit her the same way losing Tach had struck her, a sob escaping her throat, and she unable to keep her breathing under control for the good part of an hour, even with Sage and Bloom coaching through some exercises, but she does feel a wave of melancholy wash over her.

She pushes herself off away from the counter, over to Criston's side of the room. There's no one else to talk to, the others having gone to bed, but something nips away at her skin, and if Ciphra is to close her eyes in regards to anything such as sleep, the feeling intensifies like a pressure building on the back of her skull, as if someone with an ice pick is jabbing it at her. Ironically, as she looks over at Criston, she sees her father, somewhat tall, with dark hair like her own, always bent over a computer or something technological, muttering to himself about who knows what - Veracity would, actually, now that Ciphra thinks about it - but he'd still find time to actually, well, _look _at her. She misses home, and her elaborate staircases. She misses her mother and father and the smell of syrup from pancake breakfasts rising from the ground floor.

Veracity's hearty laughter, choking full of oil and rigid movements compared to his eloquent speech would flood the empty hallways while everyone still slept. The moments in time where the worst thing she had to worry about is the back pain coming from her anterior pelvic tilt, for always sitting down in chairs, or fearing that the strange boy would try to break into her room again through the curtains, now realizing that it had been Tach all this time, a friendship found too late, and lost too soon. She has no idea why she wouldn't have ever told someone about Tach, or why she never tried speaking to him before that day on the train, it maybe being fear that held her back, but she's not sure. Facing it head on has never been her strongest suit in life; she knows that jumping into a pit of alders is the quickest way to get bitten, but dammit, if she doesn't want to try.

Her father would find a way to make things right, she knows it. If her brain were unable to build the bridge to the correct destination, if it is only a matter of time until her father would come climbing up the stairs, a strong smile on his face, and the problems of the world would meld away. What is happening with her family, right now? Before becoming private contractors with District 3 in terms of security, her parents had been... Ciphra's eyes widen suddenly, and she gets to her feet, a sharp twinge of pain erupting from her back, but she doesn't care. She marches directly over to Criston, but even then, her sudden reaction does nothing more than elicit a tiring sigh out of him. He looks like he hasn't slept in three weeks, heavy bags underneath twinkling emeralds, but even they have lost their shine.

Ciphra shakes him by the shoulder. "Mr. Pellock?" she asks him, but makes a face. He's only three years older than her, he's no antiquated sir, and he's sure no shining knight in armor riding to her rescue; as if she'd require one. Still no response, he zoned entirely into the screen in front of him. "Criston?" she keeps on pushing, lightly slapping him across the face. It smacks the glasses that are perched on the precipice of his nose to slip off and clatter onto the ground, onto the dirty bunker floor, but he only blinks the distraction away. "Criston!" Ciphra yells at him, and then, forming a fist, slugs him directly in the stomach.

That does the trick. The victor from Six coughs in pain, pushing himself away from the counter, groaning out and clutching at his stomach. Dark jade eyes search around the room until they land on her, it just being he and Ciphra in the command center. Tomorrow morning starts the work with Pollux, she, Vanya, and Bloom to be sitting down across a radio receiver and a tiny camera, going to town on rallying support. For the moment, though, it is just her, and the alien on who knows what planet, that she has to work with.

"What the hell was that for?" he barks back at her, a glare passing over his face.

Ciphra tucks a few strands of dark hair behind her ears, trying to look as entirely innocent as she can, but the years of growing up are lost on her charm, turning the innocent smile into one of a smirk, her cheeks burning in embarrassment, a tinge of rosy pink and scalding lava red. "Sorry, but you weren't responding," to which Criston scoffs back at her, scooting forward to retrieve his glasses off the ground. "What are you working on?" she asks innocently, looking back at his computer screen. All she sees is a nearly blank white screen, and a titles list scrolling all the way down, and looking at the scroll bar on the side, is heavily expansive.

Criston blows a tuff of dark hair out of his eyes, placing his glasses on his face, after Ciphra beats him to the punch and hands them to him. "Rennie and Pollux wondered if I could find a way to hack into the Capitol security system, and wreak all sorts of havoc in it."

"Well, how's it going?"

"Terribly, if you must know," and he's reached the counter again, gripping onto it heavily.

Ciphra pulls her chair over to his, sitting down. "Why? What's the problem?"

"I'm a good programmer, I'd say, and an even better inventor," Criston comments, offhandedly, and she sees the way his lips twitch, she smirking back at him with a raised eyebrow. He doesn't look like much to her, just a pale man and precious jewels for eyes. A voice in the back of her head reminds her that she is talking to a Hunger Games victor who had won them at thirteen years-old, Roanoke's age, meaning there's more than what meets the eye, most certainly. "But this... this is a mess. Accessing the first firewall is easy enough, almost like they'd expect it, but then you're given the entrance to _this_," he gestures out with his hands, Ciphra following the pathway to the screen. "A manic mess of files and folders, which opens up their own programs and well, who knows what belongs to what. There's thousands and thousands of pathways, and we could be here for years trying to figure out what it solves."

"Well, can't you just-" she goes to ask, but he looks at her decisively, shutting her up.

"No, Ciphra, I'm not going to start just randomly messing up with the code. We want running water, we want the lights to stay on, and I want to not release every dead mutt or tribute ever created during the Games either," Ciphra opens her mouth to ask him to clarify, but Criston keeps on talking. "I know that there must be some specific pathways focusing specifically on Capitol security, like the mansion, or Head Gamemaker Center... but everything's all nicknames and codes and I could be here forever, when there's a new generation of victors to replace us."

As far back as she can remember, and many of these conversations happened over the creation of Veracity, her father would say that the answer's would lie directly in front of your face, but she'd be too focused on finding the loophole that would be dug so deep it is as if she's excavating a fossil. "What letter did you end up on? The files are arranged alphabetically?"

"They are," Criston nods his head. "And I'm on V. I skipped from A to T and have been scrolling ever since then, figuring out every anagram or symbol I can think of, but... well, _nothing_."

"Can I have a try?" she asks politely. Something compels her to the screen, it being nothing special, of course, but something calls to her. The call of adventure perhaps, the same call that has Tach swinging like a gorilla from one room to the other with his curtains into her own.

The victor looks at her peculiarly, and in the dark she can see his eyes sparkle in mystification, but he sighs, throwing his hands up in the air. "Sure, Ciphra; knock yourself out." He gets out of his seat, and she swaps places with him, the seat warm when she takes it, squirming slightly at the thought of absorbing his heat. He looks nice, sure, but she's not his type; as far as she's aware, no one's ever been her type except digits of programming or leaky robots.

Ciphra scrolls through the list, eyes narrowing in on the files. Most of them are just a V_ style, with numbers onto the end of them, like a serial tag. Scrolling up to the top of the list proves to be the same thing, just replacing the letter with whatever comes next in the alphabet. Criston is right, it would take eons for someone to go through all this code, let alone the possibility of someone remembering what all of this could mean to someone on the inside, let alone an outsider. She scrolls back to the V's, making a clicking noise in her throat with her tongue, humming to herself, fingers sliding over the pad of the computer.

Something causes her to recoil away from the screen in confusion, Ciphra furrowing her eyebrows together, and then scooting right back up to it.

Why... why is her family robot's name written all over the files?

She scrolls past a few, scanning the screen. _Veracity's left arm. Veracity's left leg. Veracity's brain. Veracity this, Veracity that._ Ciphra's eyes widen, her heartbeat roaring in her ears. "You wouldn't know what it was even if it was staring at you directly in the face..." she whispers, a feeling of elation rising in her veins.

Criston frowns to himself, having caught onto the brunt end of her sentence. "What'd ya say?"

Ciphra whirls around in the chair, clapping her hands together. "Criston, I think I know which files are it."

Although she's been out of the game for awhile, Ciphra Longsdale is stepping up to the plate to bat, and when she swings, she never misses.

* * *

**_Tribute List (Boy - Girl)_**

District 1: **Cyril Barther** [_Submitted by thorne98_] / **Satin Spinel **[_Submitted by Mistycharming_]

District 2: **Aris Lindel **[_Submitted by Grimbutnotalways_] / **Maren Johnson **[_Submitted by Crashed Ice24_]

District 3: **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 4: **Anahita Cascade **[_Submitted by Reader Castellan_]

District 5: **Seth Cables **[_Submitted by Nemris_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara **[_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 7: **Sage Dagoba **[_Submitted by AlexFalTon_]

District 8: **Cambric Vogel **[_Submitted by dyloccupy_]

District 9: **Jason Lacey **[_Submitted by ilvidis_]

District 10: **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

District 11: **Vanya Vasiliev **[_Submitted by TheMayflyProject_]

District 12: **Mirek Bosco** [_Submitted by_ curiousclove] / **Bloom Estrada **[_Submitted by LordShiro_]

...

_**Capitol Cast of Characters**_

_President of Panem: _**Bonnie Rodney**

_Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: _**Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies: _**Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games: _**Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: _**Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: _**Hale Cornerstone**

_Victor of the 77th Hunger Games: _**Hector Merviere**

_Victor of the 84th Hunger Games: _**Kevia Janelle**

_Head Gamemaker:_ **Constantine Fallorne**

_Head Peacekeeper: _**Lazarus Pietro**

* * *

**Alrighty, everyone, that was Chapter #28: Stepping Up to the Plate, for Bombs and Bullets, the continuation of the Phoenix Rebellion through the eyes of our tributes. A lot has happened, and as you can all tell, the POVs got shorter the longer this went on, because goodness, I just wrote this entire chapter in like thirty hours total spanning across these last two days and I'm tired, haha, _and _posting two days ahead of schedule, which is always a plus! There were no casualties for the tributes or the Capitol cast this time around, but doesn't mean a storm isn't brewing on the horizon soon. Cyril and Vivian have gotten a bit closer, the Tigress company acquired a weapon, Seth has joined the rebellion, Amaris and Aris now have Jason in their clutches, Satin has found herself in a predicament, and Ciphra has made his game a bit more complicated with a potential loophole coming through... and my hype inside me is bubbling, threatening to erupt, ya'll.**

**Chapter #29: Death Has No Allegiance, will be coming out no later than April 9th, that I'm shooting for, going back to another four POVs for the Capitol characters, and then after that, something I've been building to and building to and building to, bringing back the usage of a soundtrack for some Paradigm action sequences! I hope you all review; it'd mean the absolute world to me, and we've now entered the less than ten chapters left countdown, so start your own calendar, hold onto some horse reins, and prepare for yourself, cause we'll be moving at a pretty brisk pace. I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	29. Death Has No Allegiance (Phoenix VII)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #29: Death Has No Allegiance, another chapter of the Phoenix Rebellion, once again switching over to the Capitol character side of things. Last chapter had zero deaths on either side - shocker, I know - and had further divisions, such as the Phoenix Company heading for war, Jason brought into Amaris's clutches - therefore Bonnie's - as well as Satin getting caught in the hands of the Capitol... and things are ramping up super quickly, for there's just eight more chapters left after this one, ladies and gents. I must also pay note to the new profile picture for ****_Bombs and Bullets, _****done by thorne98, which is a portrait of Rennie calling people to join the Phoenix Rebellion... and it's so amazing, isn't it?! Go give him love for it; it is so nice of him! Also, I have a new SYOT called _Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death _which is an SYOT focused on the 1st Hunger Games, and with a whole new tribute cast and OC cast: go check it out and submit! Without further ado, I hope you all enjoy Chapter #29: Death Has No Allegiance.**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, do not underestimate the powers of wickedness and evil, and what violence they can usher down on the forces of good._

**_Bonnie Rodney: President of Panem P.O.V_**

* * *

She can tell that she's starting to lose the blonde coloring in her hair. Occasionally Bonnie will brush a few locks of hair behind her ears, and in the tangle of fingers locked with silly strands, a few gray ones will come out from the brute motion. She plucks one from her scalp, holding it out in front of her, frowning slightly. What a strange thing, aging. She knows she can't live forever, nor has she ever considered the idea of doing something that crazy, but it has drifted by her mind once before. Would she be able to concoct some sort of mutt that gave people who drank its blood the ability to live forever? What would living forever look like? Would she age... would her mind deteriorate as while the years passed on? Bonnie has no idea, truth be told, and she's willing to admit that she has no idea.

Rodric Oxford is dead, the rebel armies will be moving into position, her Head Peacekeeper is glaring at her when he doesn't think she's looking, staring at him from across the room, and her second-in-command, Constantine Fallorne has disappeared into her dark playground and no one can conjure her out of her playpen. "_Leave her there,_" Bonnie tells a squadron who had begged to go after the madwoman. "_Leave her there to rot. She'll starve to death or rejoin society._" She knows that her Head Gamemaker is the one who had given the order to destroy the training center, twisting the knife that is already plunged into her gut. No matter, it can be rebuilt, sure, when the plague has been driven out of the Capitol and out of Panem, when the redhead who shall no longer be named ends up with an axe to the brain stem. She might be the one holding onto it.

Bonnie stands in the back corner of their underground base, craving to go back out and see the sunlight. It had been dangerous, sure, to have the execution out in the daylight hours with the whole city open to them, but Bonnie knows that if anything is going to get those idiots who call themselves _The Phoenix _\- what a stupid name, by the way - need a spectacle to unstick their heads out of the sand, like ostriches. Or emus. Or whatever the _fuck,_ Bonnie didn't pass biology when she had been a little girl. She's standing up against would be considered the kitchen counter, if it that is what it can even be described as, a short elongated piece of concrete with a cabinet above it. There's no coffee, just water, and she does not like drinking something without flavor. Call her immature, if you want. She'll have Lazarus shoot them, is all. Free to say whatever they want with a bullet embedded in their cranium.

The president sighs, resting her head down on the counter, or the concrete slab, she doesn't particularly care which it is. The team of Amaris and Aris should be back soon, from their excursion into the maintenance tunnels after whomever set off the Peacekeeper substation alarm. She is against sending them, but Amaris O'Hara offers to go instead of just sending troops after a group of tributes, but the way Lazarus looks at her, and how Aris Lindel seems to be on the verge on wetting his pants at the idea of being a _used_ soldier, she sighs and relents. Why not make another mistake in war and send these goons to die? They are expendable, truly, but Bonnie knows she needs as many tributes on her side. A collected group of the D1M, D2F, D4F, D6M, D9M, and the D10F is an odd mix of people, people she would've never expected to see survive together, but most of them are Careers or rich, _or _both, and that's all that matters.

"_You thought Rodric would support_ _you,"_ Calhoun's voice tells her in her head, mocking her. Her husband still mocks her, even from the makeshift grave that is the trash bag floating in the river. "_And how did that turn out for you, sweetheart?_"

Bonnie pulls the cup of water next to her, which she's even placed in a coffee cup, for she is not about to break routine. Breaking routine is fatal, and there is no way she is going to let her mistakes become fatal when fighting a war. If she dies, what'll happen then?

She rubs one finger around the rim, lifting her head up so her stare is bearing into the cabinet, which is not made of concrete. "You'd have been so proud of me today, Calhoun," she whispers to herself, picturing her husband's face in the wall, a mold of plaster and pale flesh, with his dark blue eyes and brown hair and that smile that could melt candlewax... and the hands that could open canyons in her being; sometimes she misses him more than she wants to admit, but she doesn't regret pulling the trigger. It is one of the few things in life she's never regretted. "I didn't physically kill anyone today," Bonnie frowns to herself, lipstick smearing on her teeth as she sucks her lower lip into her mouth. "Okay, that's not quite true, but I didn't _give _the order."

She sighs, resting her head against a curled fist, blinking away dredges of an ill fated nap. The city might be hanging onto a thread, and the peace of Panem on an even thinner line still, but the country is only as strong as the leader keeping it together, and she needed to sleep. "The Oxfords treated me like trash," and she places a hand over her heart. "I _mean, _you should've heard what the boy had said to me when he saw the gallows. I should've had him killed right then and there with what he said, but I didn't," she leans forward and smudges her finger on the wall, as if she were flicking her husband's nose. Bonnie only hopes someone isn't looking; Calhoun hated when she did that, so naturally her response is to do it more often. "I had that twerp from Two hang him, and Lazarus shot the parents dead in front of me... and it was glorious," she whispers again, leaning into the wall, grinning to herself.

It had been quite beautiful, taking a sizeable bite out of the forces that Rennie - she blanches for a second, forgetting the rule that she is not to think of the vermin by name, but only be hair color or that stupid title of his - brought with him, right under her very nose. She never took him to be _that _smart or savvy, but Bonnie forgets that he literally had been an underling of hers for several years designing mutts in the arena. As far as Avoxes go, he's the one with the most brain power, most definitely. She isn't sure of the exact number, Lazarus unable to give her an exact count, but there are two thousand Peacekeepers who'll be fighting tomorrow, at dawn, with whatever firepower she can use in the fight, and if Constantine were to _pick her phone up, _the mutts of the arena at her disposal.

Who cares if the rebellion fighters don't have bombs or planes or mutts at their disposal... warfare is not about equality.

Bonnie takes a sip of her water, reminding herself to add a hint of lemon to it, as sour tastes have always acclimated to her tongue better, when Lazarus's voice begins to rise in intensity on the other side of the room.

"Where have you been all this time?" her Head Peacekeeper shouts at someone Bonnie cannot see, she whirling around to see Amaris and Aris stumbling back into the base, and Aris pushing someone inside, the person falling out onto the floor in front of Lazarus.

She sets her mug of water down, making her way across the room to them. Bonnie looks up at the monitors as she passes, but there's been nothing to report, she having a majority of the technicians go up into the mansion to sleep. The bomb had been a neat trick, sure, but there's no other device planted anywhere in the mansion, as far as she is aware, and she can rest easy knowing that, for she's returned to her bed for the nap and last night's sleep. Bonnie reaches Lazarus, and her allied tributes, while Amaris scolds Aris, helping the collapsed figure on the floor to their feet.

"Jason Lacey," Bonnie finds herself saying out loud, when finally coming to a stop. The boy from Nine dusts his knees off, his mouth set into a hard firm line, dark hair slightly dirty, and there's a welt just above his right ear, which she looks over at Aris shiftily, who seems to be incapable of maintaining eye contact.

"He's the only one you could get?" Lazarus asks pointedly, and then takes a look over of the two tributes, whose uniforms are splattered in blood. "And what the hell happened to you?"

"Hey, don't talk about me like I'm not here!" Jason bites back, but the Head Peacekeeper is motioning at the sides, where two soldiers come from either side, grabbing him by the arms. "Hey? What the hell?"

Bonnie steps up between the trio, but Jason is taller than her, so she's looking up at him, which is rather awkward to begin with. "Welcome, Mr. Lacey," she smiles. "I hope you had a nice trip, and an even better stay," and then to the Peacekeepers. "Put him in Rodric's old holding room."

"Rodric's old holding room?" the boy from Nine spits out, struggling in the men's grips to no avail, as he's hauled off. "_Old?_" his voice rises in warning. "You murdered him, didn't you? You _fucking bitch!_"

She ignores the raved ramblings of Jason, bringing her attention back to the two tributes who seemed to have melted into the walls, trying to hide the shame that is evident on their faces from downturned brows and frowns, and Amaris's posture has morphed some into a hunchback. "I would've never thought a mayor's son could have such a filthy mouth," she affronts, plastering a shocked expression on her face. "_As if you're one to talk, Miss Loose Lips,_" her mind snarks back, Bonnie swallowing heavily.

Lazarus has placed his helmet aside, and his eyes are liquid rage, but he's not looking at anyone else except for Amaris. "I told you by any means necessary to get all six tributes back here, and you only bring one. The least valuable one, who got the weakest training score," he crosses his arms over his chest. "Soldier O'Hara, explain yourself."

The girl from Six glowers back at her superior, and Bonnie sees a bit of herself in the glare, but doesn't say anything. "Well, they used any means necessary to get away from us. They killed four of our squad, and on top of that, had one of the air cannons with them. I'm lucky I got one of them."

"_Lucky?_" Lazarus's voice rises again, and Bonnie even steps back away from him, keeping one eye trained on the white of his uniform. It is for certain, Lazarus Pietro would make a terrible lover, for he raises his voice way too often. The one time Calhoun raised his voice at her, raiding her office all those months ago with that pair of underwear in a bag underneath his arm is the angriest she's ever seen her husband. Her Head Peacekeeper seems to burst in emotion every ten minutes. "You're lucky, Soldier O'Hara, if I don't revoke your title and have you arrested for failing the mission."

"Look," Aris cuts in, and Amaris raises an eyebrow at the support, Bonnie watching it all like a viper in the sand, waiting for its next meal. "Jason's the best one of the lot anyway," and the boy's eyes glisten with excitement. Bonnie can practically smell it wafting off of him, cinderblock dust and the stench of sweat. "His father is mayor, and he leads a sizeable chunk of the rebellion army, doesn't he? Cut the head off of the snake..."

"And the body withers away to die," Bonnie finishes for him, locking eyes with the Career. She looks at Lazarus, who has lowered his arm which started to rise in the air a bit, but he doesn't say anything. The president tucks another blondish gray strand behind her ears, bringing her hands together. "Unlike Lazarus, I won't scold you. It's better that they escaped and didn't kill you, than everyone dying, as I know Jason will be useful," she lifts her head up some, lips twisting into a smile. "Mr. Lindel, at first light when Lazarus and the others go to meet the rebels in Gamemakers Square, you can join them, soldier."

The boy's eyes widen with glee, he about to explode like a bottle rocket right there and then. "Wait? Are you serious, ma'am?" She forgets that he calls her ma'am, but unlike when Lazarus does it to be respectfully annoying, or Pollux who does it to mock her, Aris's usage is full of child-like behavior, filled to the brim with mirth, and no other ulterior usage of it. "Thank you!"

"Wait?" Amaris interrupts, cutting the Career's carpet ride of love short, he glaring right back at her with the intensity of an erupting volcano, but the girl from Six has her eyes trained on Bonnie. She can see the subdued fury in the way the girl clenches her gloved hands, seeing the tightening of the leather around the bicep. "I- I won't be joining them?"

"No, Soldier O'Hara, you won't be," Bonnie decides, and she doesn't smirk at her; Amaris is likely to punch her in the mouth if she were to smile. The girl goes to protest again, which she might be in the right to do, but Bonnie is not releasing control that easily in the situation. She raises a hand up, silencing Amaris in her tracks, and the girl returns to morph into the wall. "I understand that you're a regular Peacekeeper back in Six, Soldier. But you and Mr. Lindel here both came to me demanding to be useful, and so far, Soldier O'Hara, you haven't been a useful follower. Mr. Lindel on the other hand obeys our orders and doesn't talk back," she crosses her arms together. "He will go into battle, alongside Peacekeeper Pietro and the others, and with him gone, I'll need a bodyguard," the girl locks her jaw, going to argue again, but Bonnie shakes her head. "Do I make myself clear, Soldier?"

Amaris's eyes are weathered thunderstorms, filled to the brim with hate, frustration, and rage. Bonnie has seen that same look in her own reflection a time or twenty. No response at first, but Lazarus takes a step forward, clearing his throat. Amaris's shoulders fall, her arms flopping sagely to her side. "Yes, Madam President, order heard loud and clear."

"Good," Bonnie says back, but she cannot resist the smile this time. "_See, Calhoun?" _she tells herself, hoping he hears her from whatever circle of hell he has decided to rest at. "_I am a competent leader. Eat your heart out, baby._"

She's often heard from people that death has no allegiance, that it comes for anyone and everyone, but Bonnie believes in the idea of immortality now, from her mutts.

Death has no allegiance, that is true.

Death has no allegiance except to Madam Bonnie Rodney, and she'll make sure that all of Panem will never forget that.

* * *

**_Kevia Janelle: Victor of the 84th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

"You're joking, right?" Kevia asks aloud, not realizing she had spoken quite as loud as she did, hands on her hips, looking up at the building before them. "I mean, I really just assumed you were joking, but..." her words trail off as she locks eyes with Hale, raising an eyebrow. "You were serious?"

"Dead serious," Hale nods, smiling. "A safehouse."

"Please tell me that this is not what I think it is," Hector says, finally catching up to the two female victors, he shouldering a backpack, beads of sweat trickling down his forehead.

"Arizona and I's apartment? Why yes, yes it is," the victor from Two grins, looking at her companions. A blossoming flare of happiness spreads in Kevia's chest, flowing down to the tips of her fingers. She can't recall the last time she saw Hale smile before her husband had been thrown in front of a train. To see her smiling again... the bitter seed only plants itself deeper into her stomach, as Hale moves on, heading to the front door. There is not a single soul out in the streets, Kevia feeling like she's back in high school sneaking onto the land of the Victors Village homes. Lance Viel had already won, and she wanted to get a glimpse of him, he being five years her senior after all, and tall, dark haired, and handsome. Handsome perhaps being overrated, now that she thinks about it.

It is the red dot of a Peacekeeper gun square in the middle of her chest that got her to freeze in place that night, with the man's voice kindly - it sounds nicer when she plays it back over and over again now, rather than eighteen years ago when she does it at seventeen years-old, hellbent on telling Lance why she deserves the nomination to be volunteer - telling her to stop trespassing. She just wants to see what the homes look like on the inside, cause there's no way they're all identical or anything like that, that simply can't be possible. She needs to see all of them beforehand so she can choose which house she wants to move into after she wins. Kevia tells the Peacekeeper that, but then a second dot appears, this time at her heart, and the water in her mouth dries up instantaneously. She has her hands up in a 'surrender' motion before scampering off back to her house.

A week and a half later she's granted the nomination after taking down Tatiana something or other, clubbing her on the underside of the jaw with the foam sword she had been practicing with. The tributes the year prior didn't do too hot, as she recalls, one falling to their death in the bloodbath of all places, the other making it to the final ten before the girl from Two put a knife into their brainstem. Kevia swears that it wouldn't be her having that fate, there's no way she'd ever let anyone humiliate her that way. Seventeen year-old Kevia Janelle would dislike the woman she's grown to be, and Kevia won't deny that. The years haven't turned her kind, but vindictive, and the jealousy only spikes higher and higher, looking at the back of Hale's head, with her gorgeous hair - Kevia's isn't natural anymore, she lost that ability soon after winning - or having children...

"_Not that I've ever tried before,_" she tells herself with a sly smile, thinking back to summer thunderstorms where the rain pelts the windows at a forty-five degree angle, but all she can hear is her mouth on his, kicking underwear into the corner of the room, and the creaking of a bed. Sometimes she cries during the sex, but Kevia isn't sure if it is because it is painful in that moment, or she is thinking about Hale getting Arizona and having such a wonderful, beautiful _fucking _life that she's never been afforded. She sees her district partner in his face, though the two look nothing alike, his dark brown hair, and the ally's bright electric curls, and that has her cry, or has her scream... she isn't sure any longer. "_But you stole that away from her,_" Kevia's voice inside her head takes a more charged tone, angry, and ticked off, as Hale and Hector make their way to the back door, sandwiched between another building and an alleyway. "_You got her husband killed and her kids taken from her. How happy do you think Hale's life is now?"_

She bats away a single tear that has slid down her face, realizing she is simply standing up against the brick wall of the other building, rather out in the open, a ray of sunshine basking down on her face. It is alright, however, as she recalls Hale's assurances. Arizona bought the entire building, having the funds to do so, to just buy an entire apartment building, but it is that the entire building is just one house, just one single home that is their dream pad. There is a charted route that they take, accessible from any point in the city where there's a direct path to take from any singular point to the apartment, dodging the security cameras, and the skies are clear of any planes or hovercraft... the trio is in the clear. Kevia clears her throat, running over to the other victors, trying to wipe away the flushed red spots on her cheeks.

A victor does not cry. A victor never cries anymore.

How does Hale do it? How has Hale somehow not succumbed to the terrible atrocities she's committed in the Games? Kevia stops sleeping with him just because she can no longer remove the identity from the face, to disassociate himself from the man above her. It might have been because she flirted with her district partner, before seeing an arrow sprout out of the back of his head, blood splattering on her face, but Kevia has never sat with the idea long enough to confront it fully. It is one of the reasons she had even entertained the notion of writing down the letter to Bonnie, exactly a year ago today, Kevia realizes with a stunning moment of clarity, one that has her wince. To have the perfect, idealized Hale Cornerstone feel what it is like to be dancing on thin ice, as if she's never been there before.

"_And what a fuck up I've done instead,_" Kevia tells herself, but there are no tears threatening to appear again. She reaches the back door as Hale pats around on the wall, brick pieces sticking in and out like some sort of monument, the door a solid gray color. Hector rests up against it, arms crossed, looking a little worse for wear, but as Kevia anticipates, he's the one abused more in Bonnie's clutches simply because she can do it to him with no one to stop her. He raises an eyebrow at his sister in law, as she continues patting around a empty space, having pulled a brick out and dropping it to the ground.

"Uh, Hale, what are you doing?" he asks her.

The individual in question sighs to herself, maybe a bit more exasperated than what is necessary, but Kevia can understand her frustration. "I hid a key behind one of the bricks and..." her voice trails off as she pats around inside the hole, Kevia half expecting her hand to be bit or stung by a rat or scorpion or somesuch thing. "I know we never moved it, and there's no way the Peacekeepers would've found it or... aha!" Hale yells out triumphantly, wrenching the key out of the brick cell, even holding it out in her hand for Hector to see, her excitement a bit overwrought for such a thing. She inserts it into the lock, twisting left and around in a circle, pushing the door open with a wide swing, the hinges creaking as it hasn't been used in a month.

Hale removes the key from the lock, Hector stepping inside just after her. Kevia takes a step forward, pausing, and looking back behind them. The coast is clear, streets and hallways and building balconies eerily silent. Kevia has never heard the Capitol be so quiet, that she could pick up a pin dropping all the way in the sunset landscapes of District 10. She shakes her head, blonde hair billowing down like a plume of smoke against her neck, it slick and sticky with sweat. Kevia steps into the air conditioned environment of Hale's apartment, closing the door behind her. The owner of said apartment has collapsed onto the floor in the center of the room, Hector chuckling to himself with a smile. Kevia tries to keep the ire from burning too greatly; she feels sorry for the woman, for someone who is supposed to be her equal, but she doesn't have to like her. She's never liked her, to be honest, and this type of behavior simply exacerbates that.

"We'll be safe here?" Kevia asks, trying to remove the frown on her face, for she can feel the muscles pulling downwards ever so slightly, always a change in demeanor, to be the Debbie Downer of the gang.

"We should be," Hale says, and she sits up, but Kevia is unable to read the expression on her face. "There's a security system installed that will go off if someone even as such steps a foot in front of the door, windows, or what have you," and starts pointing. "Locks on every door and window, the plants in front of the windows are rose bushes with thorns that Arizona never had trimmed..." and then with a smug smile, so befitting to her, Hale turns her hands over, palms to the roof. "Three Hunger Games victors to contend with."

The gun in Kevia's waistband feels heavier now, as Hale talks. She's never fired a gun before, and did take a knife from the armory as a backup, just in case, but Kevia hasn't killed anyone in such a long time, that having a gun pointed at her face is nothing she's ever prepared herself for. The army, with just Rennie, Valencia, and Lance would be heading into position to meet the forces from the districts, to fight against Bonnie's Peacekeepers, in which Lazarus will surely be a part of. A seed of guilt buries itself into her stomach, as if she's been sucker punched, and Kevia takes a seat in the chair closest to her, some sort of wooden thing that might fall apart at any minute. Hector has chosen to stay up against the wall, arms folded over each other, his brow furrowed together in pensive thought.

"We leave in the morning?" he asks, but he's asking it to the two of them, not just to Hale.

"Yes. First light. The fighting will be happening, and it'll be the perfect time to slip in undetected," comes Hale's response, a moment later. Kevia has no idea why she isn't freaking out, as her own heart is racing inside her chest.

Kevia squeezes her eyes shut, blocking out the conversation. Did she leave all the others down in the streets to die? Has she abandoned the tributes that she never truly got to know to their fate, fates they willingly volunteered for? Meanwhile, she's racing across the abandoned city in a game of search and rescue, while her friends and her loved ones are sacrificing their lives on the frontlines... a frontline she said she'd be there for. She can't leave now, however, she couldn't do that to Hale, and couldn't do that to Hector, as she is the one to stand up and volunteer herself for the rescue down in the prison cells while the administration is distracted. She knows what she's gotten herself into by choosing to be a part of the rebellion, but that bitter seed of torment grows and grows every day, until it blooms into a flower radiating in pain and suffering, headaches and distracting ivory lights in the sky.

First light. No one is to sleep in the beds, they'll hang out in the living room and keep watch, to see if there are any Peacekeepers that come by, and they'll eat some sort of granola snack in the pantry that shouldn't have gone bad if they're tracking the cards right.

Yet she cannot shake the feeling that she is about to lose Valencia and Lance, feeling that pit burrow and fester, turning her stomach acid into curled milk, a splash of vomit hitting the back of her throat. Valencia, sweet Valencia, her darling cherub, someone she's shifted and molded into the best tribute she's ever seen with all the troubles she's faced in the arena to come out of that cesspool stronger than before... someone who's only briefly tasted a morsel of victory before being swept up in Bonnie's politics... if she dies, did she even get to live? Has Kevia even gotten to live?

Hector and Hale have started to converse with each other, talking about how the sleeping arrangements will be made, but Kevia pays them no mind, her thoughts going to Lance. She swallows a silent sob in her throat, a lump welling up behind her teeth like someone trying to force her mouth open and expel the scream. His hands in hers, fingers interlaced with one another, or the soft kisses to the back of the head. The anger in his voice as he commands her out of his house, or the stains of coffee spilling down the tile, amid broken shards of porcelain from another shattered cup... and the voicemail, _god _that voicemail. It is the night before the reaping last year, before the Quell, and Lance has stolen a sheep from Emmett's back yard, gotten stupid drunk, gotten bit by the damn animal, and she's in her cups too, some Sherry and a vodka stinger, quite the delightful combo.

Her own phone rings and rings on the receiver, which is by the counter, Kevia not looking around to see if the receiver is the same in the apartment here as it is in the house back home, but she doesn't get up to answer it. The machine trills and trills, an oceanic wave spurring over and over again, before hitting a beep. "_Hey, Kev, it's me," Lance's voice can be heard on the machine, but he's slurring his words. She never considered him to be a huge drinker, but here he is. It's how he starts every voicemail or phone call: 'it's me'. "Look, I'm not just saying this because I'm totally drunk and naked with a dead animal in my kitchen, but-"_

Kevia no longer remembers what had been the end of that message, for Lance finishes his statement and the voicemail ends. Perhaps he had expected her to run over right then and there, to jump into his arms and kiss him on any exposed spot of flesh there is to be had - in which that'd be his entire body - but she doesn't get up, for she can only half hear it herself with the vodka buzzing about in her brain. She's asked Lance to finish telling her the rest of the message, but he's yet to do it. Now she might not ever get the chance.

She closes her eyes even tighter, arms clenching on the edge of the chair's arms.

"Kevia, you alright?" Hector asks her, concernedly.

"Kev, what's wrong?" Hale jumps on the bandwagon.

"_You don't get to use that name with me,"_ Kevia's voice snarls in her head, but in reality she simply nods, and the sounds of the outside world drown themselves out.

Over and over again she hears it play, but Lance never finishes his statement. Just a trill, and the beep, and the sound of her fists pounding against a doorframe, Bonnie's face, Hale's jaw, Valencia's neck, Lance's sex... all of it overwhelms her in a surging tide.

_Leave a message after the beep._

_Hey, Kev, it's me._

_I'm not just saying this because I'm drunk with a dead animal in my kitchen but..._

_I think I'm going to die tomorrow._

* * *

**_Constantine Fallorne: Head Gamemaker P.O.V_**

* * *

Chaos has a certain smell to it.

Not something ashy, like she expects, having been one to smell it ever since her husband's accidental end, in which she watches his eyes bug out of his head almost quite literally, glasses falling to the ground and breaking underneath her stomped foot. No, chaos - with a capital C for emphasis, she notes - is one of perfume, a sweet fragrance on the air, but mixed in it Constantine can hear the screams of the dead, the wailing of the widows who are over the broken bodies of their loved ones, the popping kernel sound of gunfire, and in it all, her laughter. Her laughter has a scent to it as well, like alcoholic wipes, or the stench of a cage, rusted over and falling apart. She isn't falling apart, no, but she is watching the country collapse under its own weight.

Bonnie is so useless, Constantine can't believe she found herself drinking from that pool of Kool-Aid. The woman is pretty to look at, sure, and has a nice voice and a good glare, but is ineffective at herding in the cows. She isn't so sure if it is due to the idiocy of her advisors, that meathead Lazarus simply telling her to order restraint and march soldiers out to die on a battlefield, because from her point atop the peak, Constantine sees a burning horizon, and the sky is bleak, on fire with sulfur lacing the clouds. The woman is going to lose the city and her title as President before she even had it. She got what she wanted, and staged a coup to do it. Constantine wouldn't have gone about it like that, with a bunch of bullets and Peacekeepers and bodies thrown in front of trains; it isn't a way to be subtle.

There's a method to the madness, Constantine reasons with herself in her head. It has an extra 's' on one end of it anyways, meaning it is plural, and when there is a plurality to something, there's a process. Madness is a process, and she has read the informational guide of it from Step A to Step Z, backwards, frontwards, and even upside down cause madness is someone's unpredictability in a world of predictability. It seems _mad _to outsiders, because they simply don't understand. Bonnie views her madness as chaos, but Constantine laughs in its face. The president has not sown the fields of chaos, and there are no hummingbirds coming to suckle the nectar of her reign, but wasps diving in and attacking. You can blow up tons of things at once, sure, but what you're left with is a ruin, and ruins are not good for rebuilding.

Chaos needs to be slowly done over time. If someone is to use violence as an answer, the violence needs to be gradual, not all at once. Of course, Constantine withholds the information and keeps it to herself, sitting inside the Gamemaker Center all alone with her pets down below in their cages, in the Mutt Tunnels, breathing reminders or what a dosage of pandemonium looks like, manufactured devices of madness, rather than simply demanding people be killed on a whim. She has her own plans with them, and there's no one asking her about what those plans are, which has her smiling with glee. Watching the boy from Ten be executed in such a barbaric way, rather than being shot to death like his parents, that has Constantine making a tut noise in her throat. If Bonnie wishes to placate chaos and evil into the heart of the rebellion, she should've livestreamed it.

She doesn't. Constantine has to hack into a streetlamp corner to see it happen. She's not surprised to see the kid be one of the first to go, in a way that is not direct battle, for he never looked strong enough anyways, but Bonnie simply leaves the situation once she gets the order. She has all the ingredients in her hands to make an omelet, and instead she's creating a salad. Constantine would go and give her help, but even after she subverts the order and has the training center destroyed rather than kept together, the administration still does nothing, still lets her leave.

"_It's because she can't control me,_" the Head Gamemaker smirks to herself. "_She can't handle anyone she can't control._"

It's the truth, and she's seen it from afar, in her subservient roles. Watching Lewlyn from a distance, as much as Constantine hates to admit it, the woman made people fear her, yet in that fear, respect her, especially as she started putting up a new leaf. Calhoun, Bonnie had her husband wrapped around her finger until he usurps her position by not telling her, his own wife, about the ending of the Games. He didn't die because he didn't tell her the truth, or that he caught her cheating, or that she simply wanted to be president, although that might've been part of it. He dies because he oversteps his boundaries, she couldn't control him anymore. She could never control Lewlyn either, never has been able to, and Constantine saw the writing on the wall years earlier, before she's hired to be a Gamemaker.

Lazarus she can control with just a glare, and his strange undying devotion to the Rodney family. Rennie has broken away from her, burning the bridge that would've been their lasting relationship. The moment Lewlyn freed him, the moment Bonnie's tangible hold on the man disintegrates and Panem's future has been written long before any motions were taken in place to set the board as it is looking. Constantine herself, however? She likes to give the illusion that she is Bonnie's equal, that she is being ordered around by a woman whose hair is losing the blonde in it day by day, with a baby she never sees or knows how to care for. As if that woman could even compare. All the woman has to do is stand on a pedestal and look pretty, while Constantine orchestrates her affairs from behind the curtain.

She'll orchestrate the affairs just so she can take the mantle from the blonde haired idiot, she deserves it, as she's going to be Panem's savior. Constantine foretold it once at a game of bingo, where her husband drinks one too many whiskeys and makes a fool of the Fallorne name, when she catches the paper slip of the girl's number - an advertisement, actually, she catches her husband sleeping around with a damn hooker instead of a socialite like all the dim-witted higher-up men do - out of his pocket, that she'll save Panem from some dark future, and her husband is only half listening to her, makes bingo, and proceeds to flip the damn table.

Constantine smells a new scent on the air, from what the chaos settling over the Capitol contains, this time a muskier odor, one of machineguns and sterilized hospital beds, and the ruinous rust of copper flowing down people's hands. The scent of battle is being picked up by the tree branches, by the tenseness of the muscles she sees in the Peacekeepers walking the streets. She witnesses the girl from Five fall dead to the ground with a bullet in her brain, and the brave yet foolish boy from Twelve fight the disorderly in one of the business sectors. The last real exciting moment is when Constantine watches, in a bird's eye view of the Capitol, the girl from One doing acrobatic somersaults across the rooftops of the Capitol to aid in her escape. She sees the roof the tribute stops on, and Constantine thinks to herself how silly the girl is being. Satin Spinel could make out like a bandit in the Capitol, really being another favorite for the audience, able to curry her favor with the president, but she's chosen the way of death.

The Head Gamemaker feels nothing but glee as she notifies the nearby squad of Satin's location, and receiving the feedback that the extraction is a success, and she'll be placed in one of the holding cells being constructed just a bit away from the Gamemaker Center, quite literally a cage extending for about a football field in length. However, what has her raising her eyebrows, besides the gaining mass of soldiers out on the Capitol perimeter, in which she can see Rennie's bright blonde hair stick out like a sore thumb amidst all the heads of dark hair - Valencia is noticed still, just the energy that the victor radiates - is two developments that pop up on her radar.

She is picking out the outfit she'll get dressed in for tomorrow, to witness the bloodbath of dead rebels and Peacekeepers lining, some sort of sparkling crimson thing made out of sequins, and it is backless, great for all sorts of affairs, when a new ping hits her server. Constantine frowns to herself, hands flitting between wardrobe options when she sticks her head out of the little closet on the side of the terminal. Her heels make echoes on the floors, rebounding against the walls, going to the center of the room to look at the screens splayed out in front of her. Two monitors have a notification in the corner of them, Constantine turning around to face the holographic display of the city, each divvyed up into sections, tapping the wo sectors where the notifications are.

Sector X, which is around the aquifer system, and filled to the brim with a bunch of apartments, and Sector A... _her area. _Constantine raises an eyebrow in surprise. She should be the only one inside the Sector, after all, with everyone in the tribute center dead. The notification seems to be pinging from underground, but she addresses the Sector X notification first. There are no assigned Peacekeeper squads or patrols to that section of the city, so it must be someone violating curfew or... _oh._

Constantine smiles to herself, seeing the different hair color assortment of victors Hale Cornerstone, Hector Merviere, and Kevia Janelle doing what looks like breaking into a home. A quick search in the database reveals that it is the apartment bought by Arizona, and they're away from the pack. There's only one reason why they'd be out, away from the rebels, right? The smile grows wider, and she has to suppress the laugh threatening to break free from her throat. It might be time to pay the victors a visit soon; the tributes have been graced by her chaos, but the victors have yet to be affected.

She switches screens to the Sector A map, noting how her heartbeat is starting to pick up speed; her blood pressure medicine is inside the closet, on a shelf, and she'll reach if should she start losing her breath, but Constantine figures it is just an anomaly, and anomalies are nothing to be afraid of any longer. Constantine leans closer to the monitor, hit with the darkening corridors of a maintenance tunnel that leads down into the sewers, only about half a mile from where she is standing now. Constantine brightens the image superficially, standing up straight as the occupants of the screen come into clearer view.

"Well... they're far away from home, aren't they?" she whispers to herself, but she doesn't feel the need to smile.

The door to the Mutt Tunnel hallway is wide and open to allow some of the air conditioning to flow into the building, as the air is starting to get stuffy, and she's starting to sweat. Now this, _this _is interesting... five tributes delivering themselves into her own personal hell, and they had no idea what they've walked into. Constantine rubs her hands together, friction zapping her palms awake, jolts of electricity and excitement flooding through her veins. Acting right now will be too hasty, for she's aware that their group of five used to be six, and Bonnie is reporting having a new hostage in that mayor's son from Nine, so she'll give them some rest from their problems, as the tributes on screen are starting to bicker between one another. The girl from Ten is yelling at the girl from Two, while the boys from One and Six are holding the two apart, until the girl from Four lets out a scream that even Constantine hears through the monitor.

They'll never see it coming.

When the battle is won tomorrow morning, the victors handled, and these poor tributes served up to Death's door on a gleaming platter, Constantine knows that it'll be the perfect time to execute her plan to save Panem from itself. She'll rip its future out of Bonnie and Rennie's hands, left to collect the spoils of war, after losses are reported in the streets, while she climbs over the staircase of corpses to her throne.

"Oh, darling!" she yells out, down to the Mutt Tunnels, a low grunt or roar or some other animalistic sound acknowledging her presence, "Tomorrow is going to be a fun day for you! Try to not get too worked up; you'll get to meet those tributes that the Avox stole from you!" and then in her head, "_The kills that Rennie stole from me._"

Death has no allegiance, she's heard it said, but it owes allegiance to Constantine Fallorne.

She's going to cash in that winning ticket.

* * *

**_Valencia Shale: Victor of the 100th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

The air is thick and heavy, a dampening cloud of pressure and moisture, riddled with nervousness and anxiety, the same nervousness and anxiety that flows through her own bloodstream right now as the encampment slowly makes itself known over the horizon. It isn't much, just a random assortment of tents, most of the main encampment being back by the border. The estimates are looking to be about two thousand Peacekeepers, numbers that Valencia didn't even know existed in the Capitol, but it is a pool of Two, Eleven, and the Capitol forces comprising of that... while the rebel numbers seem to be around two hundred from the city itself, with all the work Rennie, Pollux, and the other victors have done, with nearly 1700 people coming in from the districts on the stolen hovercrafts.

One hundred people short, but Valencia knows they'll be fighting a losing battle. Bonnie isn't going to release the control of the country so easily, having all sorts of firepower on their side, and wherever Constantine is, probably going to be causing mayhem herself. It is why Rennie forces those three tributes - Vanya, Ciphra, and Bloom, as Valencia is not going to forget those kids and their names, for their her age too, yet she's put on a pedestal - to stay behind, to garner as much support as they can. Vanya will be speaking to anyone in their home in the Capitol that can fight, to pick up arms and join the, Bloom doing an all call to the districts with Pollux, and Ciphra helping Criston wreak as much havoc on the systems as they possibly can... the sinking sun on the horizon no longer gives Valencia comfort like it once did.

Gamemakers Square can be seen a bit further from their encampment, a world unlike the rest of the city, a monolith made entirely of marble, with platinum sidewalks instead of concrete, and in the middle, a gigantic statue of the Panem logo, Constantine's name etched in some gold font around the rim; the name is replaced every time a new Head Gamemaker comes into power. "_When one of them is killed, you mean,_" pipes up the axe wielding girl from Seven, who Valencia is really starting to like, and the medic guy from Eight smiles in agreement. Their new arrival to the party however is standing there with his arms crossed, a cross expression on his face, a sheathed knife against his pant leg, and a rifle slung over his shoulder. It looks somewhat jarring to Valencia, to see so many normal people armed.

Rennie goes off to meet one of the leaders from Eleven or Twelve, she is not really sure, and Lance goes to show where Sage and Cambric are to be sleeping, leaving Valencia alone with Seth Cables, her attempted murderer. She's read the note from Lazarus, and knows that there had been no way Bonnie would've signed off on something like that. Despite their clear political differences, she sees it in the woman's eye before everything goes boom that she'll always be forgiven by her, even if she doesn't deserve it. Have Galiant or Peri's families forgiven her for ending their lives? Valencia finds herself lying awake at night wondering that. Do Milor, Carrion, Persephone, and Marcus's parents lie awake at night cursing her for coming home before they did? She doesn't believe any longer that she deserves forgiveness from them, but on a second thought, how would Persephone do in her place?

If Annabellina hadn't burnt her alive with a flamethrower, would her darling of the Underworld be taking a stand and fighting for what is right as well? She wants to believe that she would, and that she'd look gorgeous doing it.

Seth clears his throat, looking at a map of the city out in front of them on the table of the command tent. There is a large X through the forces from Ten, but no one still quite knows what happened. Rennie isn't going to force any of them to stay, as the Oxfords who were leading a majority of the people from Ten vanished into the city earlier in the morning, and soon after that, the hovercrafts that brought them took off into the sky, taking two hundred cattle ranchers and other citizens back home. So a force of 1700 to 2000... three hundred short, and Valencia isn't sure any victors were going to change the tide of war. She has the gun that Criston gave her, still having yet to even take a shot, and her sword slung over her back. She has no idea who went back to her glass house to get it for her, but it is there on her bed when she goes to sleep yesterday, the victor hugging the weapon tight to her body.

Valencia eyes the District 5 male with a quick glance, looking back down at the map. Gamemakers Square is a bowl, one way in and one way out from the North and South, a bottleneck, and once trapped, there'll be no way out. They're walking into a bloodbath, she can already tell.

"Are you nervous?" she asks him, Seth jostling in place as if he can't believe he's been spoken to.

He brings his eyebrows together with a frown, eyeing her from across the tent. She nearly falls over in Command when Pollux comes back with Bloom, announcing Seth's decision to join the rebellion, to be fighting alongside them in the upcoming battle. Valencia expects an execution first, if Rennie's bloodlust is anything of note, but the kid chooses it, so she has to respect it. She doesn't hate him, she doesn't, but the guy in front of her would have been dead in an arena setting had she chosen to kill him then and there back in the training center.

Seth stirs some, eyes alit with confusion as he tries forging an answer. Valencia can wait; she's a very patient person. "Of course I am. What kind of stupid question is that?"

Well... _well, _that's a knee-jerk reaction, isn't it? Valencia hisses out loud, breathing heavily through her nose. It's like Maisey's impatience all over again, but now in a male body and the guy's somehow an experienced killer. She tightens her hand around the hilt of her blade, moving her hands so it looks like she's adjusting her ponytail. "Just trying to strike up conversation," she curves her flatline into a smile, but it is hurting the very crevice of her soul to make the expression. Nothing is to stop her from skewering him on the spot, to give a taste of the justice he might very well deserve for what he's done, but she stays her hand. Rennie has said it, and Pollux has beaten her over the head with it, that they need every man they can get, anyone willing to fight. The battle tomorrow could full and well decide Panem's future for generations with all things considered.

"If I wanted conversation I would've gone with Sage and Cambric," he gruffs back at her, but this time he looks at her, hard jade eyes with her own blue ones. It is just for a second, but she holds the gaze in place, lifting her head with a slight smile, this time genuine. Even Maisey could grin back at her if things called for it. "Okay, yes, I'm terrified," Seth relents, running a hand through his hair. "I feel like I'm gonna shit my pants."

She holds in her laughter, for it truthfully isn't funny, the worry about everyone's doom. "I understand."

"Do you, though?" Seth questions, without hesitation, following her statement right after the other. His eyes pierce through her, like they did a week ago when she witnesses the training sessions, able to taste the darkness that flows from him. He looked the part, she must admit, but hearing it from Bloom on what he's done and who he's killed, it still makes her skin crawl. However, standing here on the grass in the command tent, she no longer feels that trepidation, spider legs turning into a silk embrace instead.

If he is to not give her a moment's peace in responding, she might as well not allow him the same satisfaction. "Yes, I do, Seth," her gaze hardens, jaw locking in place, and for the hell of it, Valencia pulls her sword at. The weapon is one damn impressive piece of metal, but it feels heavy in her hands, not having physically swung it in so long. Seth swallows heavily, she hearing it from her side of the tent, he stirring in place some more. "I know you haven't been in an arena, and this might be worse, for an actual battlefield, but yes, I understand terror. I am a human, y'know."

"No," he interrupts her, as Valencia has more to say, but he won't let her get there. A gust of wind blows through the tent, flaps flipping open, she hugging her arms tight, but she keeps her gaze on Seth. "You're a Career. They enjoy killing."

"And you don't?" she shoots back at him, stepping up to the table, holding onto on end with the sword in the other hand, it stretching out halfway across the table. Seth's focus shifts over to the blade, she seeing his eyes widen some. He must not have a weapon on him. "Seth, I killed people in the Games to stay alive, and I know you would've done it too, so don't try to act like we aren't one in the same," she can see he is biting back some sort of comeback, but Valencia has learned a lot over the year of being a victor, on having to 'adult' as Kevia puts it with a martini glass in her left hand. "Besides, you've definitely killed more people than me. We are not one in the same, Seth."

The male from Five bulks his tongue on the side of his mouth, he standing up straight, rolling his eyes. "Whatever," he goes to leave, heading for the opposite side of the tent. He pushes past one of them, but a lightbulb goes off in her head.

"Seth," she ventures forward with an olive branch, he stopping in his tracks, looking at her hollowly. Valencia swallows, her mouth dry, words suddenly failing her. "I forgive you, for what Mr. Pietro made you do, and I don't hate you," he scoffs, shaking his head, but Valencia isn't finished. "And, Seth, thank you for deciding to side with us. I'll be honored to fight alongside you tomorrow, no matter what happens."

Valencia isn't quite sure what she expects as a response, as he doesn't seem to be the hugging type, for Seth simply scoffs once again, a look of sadness filling in his eyes. He shakes his head, mouth level. "No need to thank me. I didn't volunteer for you," and that's all he has for her, vanishing out of the tent and out into camp.

She has no idea why she follows him, but Valencia does, leaving her sword resting on the table holding the map. Valencia replaces him in the entrance to the tent, watching him saunter off the way Lance is heading back from, the sun hitting the back of Seth's head, and the pale _5 _illuminated on his training uniform, as he has yet to change, refusing the offer. The sun is starting to sink beneath the sky, a canvas of blood reds and sunburst oranges and bright flourishes of gold streaking through the sky on one side, and the other, heading further into the Capitol, is the bleakness of night, Valencia looking behind her as Lance makes his way up to the command tent.

The sky is oily and black, thick with the sounds of machinery, Valencia hearing her heartbeat roar in her ears.

Death has no allegiance, regardless of what anyone says. It comes for whoever it can, whenever it can.

The pressure might cause her eardrums to burst, if her heart rate keeps the pace that it is going.

The battle of Gamemakers Square awaits.

* * *

**_Tribute List (Boy - Girl)_**

District 1: **Cyril Barther** [_Submitted by thorne98_] / **Satin Spinel **[_Submitted by Mistycharming_]

District 2: **Aris Lindel **[_Submitted by Grimbutnotalways_] / **Maren Johnson **[_Submitted by Crashed Ice24_]

District 3: **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 4: **Anahita Cascade **[_Submitted by Reader Castellan_]

District 5: **Seth Cables **[_Submitted by Nemris_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara **[_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 7: **Sage Dagoba **[_Submitted by AlexFalTon_]

District 8: **Cambric Vogel **[_Submitted by dyloccupy_]

District 9: **Jason Lacey **[_Submitted by ilvidis_]

District 10: **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

District 11: **Vanya Vasiliev **[_Submitted by TheMayflyProject_]

District 12: **Mirek Bosco** [_Submitted by_ curiousclove] / **Bloom Estrada **[_Submitted by LordShiro_]

...

_**Capitol Cast of Characters**_

_President of Panem: _**Bonnie Rodney**

_Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: _**Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies: _**Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games: _**Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: _**Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: _**Hale Cornerstone**

_Victor of the 77th Hunger Games: _**Hector Merviere**

_Victor of the 84th Hunger Games: _**Kevia Janelle**

_Head Gamemaker:_ **Constantine Fallorne**

_Head Peacekeeper: _**Lazarus Pietro**

* * *

**Alrighty, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #29: Death Has No Allegiance, and holy crap I wrote 7k in like five hours; I'm exhausted haha. Things have happened, chess pieces have been moved, and hot damn, as Valencia can feel it, the battle of Gamemakers Square is on the horizon, which I am so excited for. Jason is now in Bonnie's clutches, Amaris reprimanded while Aris has been praised, the trio to rescue Hale's children have reached their safe zone, Constantine notices a fly has wiggled her web, and the armies of both Bonnie and Rennie are to soon meet face-to-face. **

**Next chapter will be #30: Battle of Gamemakers Square, what reads on the tin, and will be the first chapter to include a song, like when Slaughter had three. I'll let you all know that music choice in the opening AN of the chapter, so stay tuned! In other news, I have a new SYOT out called Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death which is open for submissions and I'll have the third prologue coming out on Friday if all the signs are good, and I'd love to have you. Three submissions max is what I'm taking, but I most likely will only use one or two of them given the volume I am receiving. ALSO, give thorne98 some damn love for that amazing new cover photo of Rennie that he drew by himself, cause isn't it great? As usual, I'd love if you review, and get ready for some intensity; it's time to turn up the heat.**

**I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	30. Gamemakers Square (Phoenix VIII)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #30: Battle of Gamemakers Square, and this has been one I've been dreading to write since the very beginning when I knew where this crazy explosive train ride would take us, and now it's here and I either can halt the story dead in its tracks and never write more of it, or I trudge on into this terrifying landscape. It's here, I've hyped it up, last chapter was all about prep for it, and we're gonna freaking do it. This chapter, for the first time in Bullets, like with three of my fight scenes in Sheep Led to Slaughter - bloodbath, 13th-11th place fight, and the final two - this song has a musical accompaniment to it. When the battle begins, cause you'll know it from this opening POV, play an orchestrated version of Heart-Shaped Box from the Westworld Season 2 soundtrack; just have the song loop on repeat till the chapter is over... cause I've been so psyched for this. I also apologize beforehand if the POVs are all of varying lengths... it's a battle, and my action can be spotty at worst and decent at best, so things might be a falling apart roadmap, whoops. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #30: Battle of Gamemakers Square.**

* * *

~ _And so sayeth the Lord, when the trumpets sound, raise your axes and spears, swords and maces and load your bows, for we will engage with the enemy. The fight will last for a thousand years, and when you finally feel overcome with exhaustion, the fight will last another thousand more. We never stop fighting the enemy, for the enemy will never quit._

**_Sage Dagoba: District 7 Female P.O.V (17)_**

* * *

This is what the enemy looks like? Sage has to hold the scoff to herself, staring out over the city at the top of the hill, looking past the square where the bloodshed will be held, to the high rise buildings in the back, and beyond that even further, the mansion. Standing still like tombstones - _they're marking where they'll die, seems fitting, _Sage muses to herself with a sly grin - with their uniforms glowing like supernovas under the burning glare of the sun, are Peacekeepers, helmets down, guns in their hands, amid other sorts of weapons too. She clutches the grip of her own weapon as well, a gleaming silver axe that looks all too familiar when it is pressed into her hands by Valencia late last night, before everyone goes to sleep. There's a light blue glow to the pad that is handed to her, as well as the associated glove. Sage runs a finger over the button in the center of the hilt, looking up suddenly after that, lost for words, and lost for words even moreso at the haunted look in the victor's eyes.

"_This-" she swallows her surprise, licking her lips. "It was Peri's, wasn't it? Her sponsor gift in the finale?"_

_"The very same," Valencia admits, with a nod of the head, but there isn't anything else to be said, Sage supposes. It feels heavy in her hands, mind wondering at how on hell they had access to it, but she feels it better to not ask how. "It might help give us an edge. I would've tried giving Seth the flamethrower Annabellina had," the victor lets out a sigh, pushing down on the bridge of her nose with her thumb, "But it was destroyed in the fire she made against the mutt and all so..." Another shake of the head. "Rennie felt that it would help you, since you aren't entirely used to a gun." _

_"Well, thank you, Valencia."_

_"There's no need to thank me," there's an iciness to Valencia's response, causing Sage to look back up at her in quiet alarm. "I didn't do it for you."_

Back to the present, where the sky is cloudless, a wide expanse of blue, like Roanoke's eyes after his final moments, someone moves closer to her, two people rather, making Sage jump. She looks over at both Seth and Cambric, who have gotten closer to her. Rennie and the others are back down in the command tent, and soon, the call to fight will be granted, and the cobblestone streets will have blood spilled down between the cracks. Sage nods at the two of them, two fellow tributes of hers who are no longer tributes, nor enemies, but contenders... maybe even friends if she were to push it that far, for Cambric. She doesn't like Seth very much, with good reason she'd support, but better to have him with them than on the other side, something that could've definitely happened with the series of events that have surrounded them.

It is strange, to her, where just less than seventy-two hours ago, after she puts the high heels up, walking back with Roanoke to their apartment, that she'd have no problem sending an axe into either one of their backs, but now? The thought of doing such a thing speaks unspeakable volumes of atrocity to her. Rather, she'll pour all of her atrocity out on the army in front of her. She's heard the numbers, and they aren't great, especially with half of the District 9 forces disappearing at the early moments of dawn, but there's nothing more about that, a stormy feeling brewing in her stomach, waves of acid churning over her intestines.

"Look at all of them," she says, trying to hide the nervousness in her voice. Sage knows she'd be a front line soldier, especially when she takes Pollux and Rennie's offers back at command, but seeing the enemy up close and personal is entirely different than what she anticipates it to be; it isn't scared Audhild Olthono cowering in front of her, but men with one single purpose. To exterminate. "It's like the wave never ends."

"That's what two-thousand soldiers look like, y'know," Seth says, and there's a hint of a scowl on her face. He's holding onto a gun in his hand, some sort of sleek gray steel thing that Sage has with her too, but holding onto the axe... it's an entirely different feel. God, is he always such a sourpuss?

"We'll beat them, I know we will," Cambric adds, after a pause, locking gazes with Sage, giving her a sweet smile. He is armed with a gun as well, and a long knife that he is holding onto in his left hand, a medical bag strapped over his back, some sort of heavy husk, like a beetle shell.

"That wasn't what I was trying to say," she mutters to herself, and the sounds of a collection of people moving picks up on her ears. Turning around, with Seth and Cambric following suit, her heart begins to beat faster in her chest as Rennie, Valencia, and Lance join them at the top of the hill, and behind them, the soldiers from the District and the Peacekeepers on their side. It is really happening, it is really going to happen within the next few moments, and she could very well be dead... Sage isn't sure how at peace she is with those terms just yet.

Peri Florence, the girl before her, with the very axe she is holding onto, did some spectacular things in the arena. Sure, there had been a strength serum in her to give the gal a fighting chance, but she did what had been needed and didn't complain about it, doing the hardest things the arena could ask of someone. Who would Sage be if not to honor the person who had held the weapon before? Cambric nods at the two of them before going back to join the other medics that have been brought to the battlefield. Seth moves a bit closer to her, but she doesn't say anything. Rennie and the two victors helm at the head of the hill, looking back at the forces, a surge of strength flooding through Sage's veins, her muscles tensing as she prattles her fingers on the leather of the axe.

There's a sharp whistle on the wind, a current blowing her auburn hair around, it tied back into a harsh ponytail. She's washed out the purple tips of the mohawk she had, as she doesn't want to stand out too much in the crowd, with nearly four thousand people going to be locked in combat. There's a huge murmur over the crowd, excitement and nerves bristling together, but Sage knows that is all going to go into a figurehead of rage, rage for the one evil standing in front of them at that stupid square, a homage to the Gamemakers who've made sport of the blood debts spilled and shed by the very hearts of Panem. Valencia has a wireless microphone in her hand, Sage still finding it odd that their leader can't actually speak, before he starts firing his sign language at them.

"Phoenixes!" Valencia screams into the microphone, startling Sage, and by the way Seth slightly jumps, him too. "Soldiers!" Sage looks at the victor with pride, while Lance is nodding his head, holding onto the sword he brought with him, and some massive automatic rifle slugged over his back. "There's an army down there waiting to kill you, led by Bonnie Rodney herself, the woman who stole our futures!" There's an uproar from the army, Sage feeling the urge to raise the axe in the air as well and shout. "President Calhoun had been planning on ending the Games, ending the evil that lasted over Panem a hundred and one years ago, before she murdered him and took his place, not wanting things to change!" There's true viciousness on Valencia's face, and Sage has never seen the girl, just one year older than her, look so angry and filled to the brim with rage. "Are we going to let her get away with the things she's done?"

"NO!" Sage roars back. Roanoke Arkus didn't ask to be killed like a terrified little lamb. He didn't ask to be killed in a training center at nearly 3 AM with the back of his head rupturing like a geyser of blood. He didn't ask to become one of Bonnie's pawns, and neither is she. Jules, Tach, Audhild, Magdalena, Zola, and whomever else that's been lost... they didn't ask for that either.

"They will not show you mercy, cause to them, we're the enemy," Valencia juts a finger at them. "But we know who the true enemies are, and we're in their domain!" Sage starts bouncing on the balls of her feet, tightening the leather straps of the gloves on her hand. "We will fight these Peacekeepers to the death, until there isn't a single one of us standing, for this is where we make our stand, this is where we make our push. You've put your faith in us to lead you this far, and now we need to put our faith in you too," at her words, Rennie, who has been making his sign language symbols, for Sage sees an Avox or two gathered among them, places a blade into a pocket on his hand, a gloved hand that has a slot to lock a blade into place, before holding onto his own weapon too. "We will burn the corruption of Bonnie and the Hunger Games out root and stem, until all that is left is ash! Phoenixes," Valencia roars, and then turns around, to face Gamemakers Square, Sage's heartbeat starting to roar louder and louder in her ears. She presses down on the button in the middle of the hilt, the blade's flames roaring to life, a slight wave of heat hitting her in the face. "IGNITE!" Valencia yells one last command, throwing the microphone down onto the grass, pulling out her own sword.

There's a trumpet sound from somewhere, and then the entire world seems to surge forward in a push of volatile anger and screaming. Sage is unsure what her feet are doing, but they're slamming down onto the grass, leaving footprints in the dry sand, Seth running pace for pace beside her. Valencia and Lance have broken into the lead, with Rennie starting to fall behind some in the push, but they're getting closer second by second. _Five Mississippi._ Sage isn't sure exactly what that phrase is supposed to mean, but she's heard it before about anticipation. _Four Mississippi. _There's the sound of gunfire, and someone on her left is shot in the head, collapsing down under their own weight, but she surges forward. _Three Mississippi. _Is she screaming? Sage thinks she might be yelling at the top of her lungs.

Seth is definitely yelling, but then he surprises her by diving out of the main congregation to her right, into an alleyway of a building. She picks up his own yell, another surge of strength cackling in her throat. _Two Mississippi. _"_Don't do anything till you see the white of their uniforms,_" she tells herself, something Lance had said last night while showing she and Cambric their rooms. Sage holds out her axe, the blade still burning, and there's more gunfire, the streaking sound of an RPG, but all she can see is the helmets of Peacekeepers poking over the coarse stone. _One Mississippi. _

Contact.

Sage vaults herself forward at the first Peacekeeper she sees, someone reloading his clip and backing up while doing it. She's on him like a tiger pouncing onto its prey, but she cannot hear her own voice anymore over the thrumming of her heartbeat in her head. She smashes the butt end of the axe into his visor, cracking it from the brunt force, and then raises her axe upwards, blade a gleaming ferocious stream of fire, smashing it against his skull, despite whatever weak cries hit her lips. Sage leaps off of his body for cover, as another rain of gunfire shoots out like hail, hitting an entire wave of district soldiers in the chest. Blood is such a visceral color, that comes to her with such a shock and a shaky breath, as it gets onto her uniform.

There's no time to contemplate your actions, however, as an explosion pushes Sage forward some. She presses the button on the hilt again so she doesn't carve her stomach into ribbons. Turning around, just barely peeking her head above the rim of the fountain she's hid herself behind, Sage sees a plume of smoke starting to settle into a blanket over the Square. What had been a rather pretty sea of platinum laminated walkways, with the statue of Head Gamemaker Constantine Fallorne getting blown to bits by a waylaid rocket. She covers her eyes with her arm as a shower of dust and small chunks of rock hit her, but someone else is not so lucky as a good one about the size of a bowling ball hits them square in the chest, caving it in and the person falling down under the pressure.

She gets up again, advancing, her knees knocking together like jelly. She can see Valencia through the mist, dark hair bleak enough in the shadows, slicing a Peacekeeper open in the gut, before knocking the man back and diving the weapon into his neck, but that has the girl from Seven letting out a light gasp from the violence. _God... that's brutal. _Out of the corner of her eye, there's two Peacekeepers advancing, one holding their own weapon out, taking free shots at whomever runs by them. She grits her teeth together, throwing her axe, and the glove on her right hand glows a bright and serene blue. It soars through the air, stuck on its side like a disc, before embedding into the first Peacekeeper's chest. It churns and spins in him like a saw, Sage averting her eyes before wrenching her hand back, the axe ripping free from the movement, the victim falling back, dead.

The other Peacekeeper seems stuck in shock, she racing forward, ripping her gun free. She shoots him in the side of the head, he falling down with a thud onto the ground. Another RPG goes soaring over her head, smashing into the side of a building, another rain of plaster and debris falling down. She throws her pistol on the ground, taking the assault rifle the man had instead. She slings it over her shoulder, holding onto her axe with the other hand. She smashes into someone, a soldier on their side, she thinks, about to ask him if he's okay when a bullet enters one side of his head and exits out the other, a splatter of blood covering her face, Sage thinking some might've gotten into her mouth, the tribute honestly not sure. She pushes the corpse off of her, crawling back on all fours. She can hear victor Lance Viel yelling at someone to get out of the way when he's knocked aside by another side of a falling building, but he seems to be okay.

Sage makes another break for another alleyway, tripping over a dead body in front of her, the person's face no longer having a nose, their mouth smashed in, and one eye removed from the socket. What- what the _fuck _could've done that? A wave of nausea hits her, vomit threatening to appear from her throat. Through the murk, Sage sees Seth stab someone in the neck with a knife, and then whirling around, shooting another Peacekeeper in the heart with the gun in his hand, there being no flow to his movements, but moments of jerkiness and rigidness. The blur of a pale gray uniform, that of the medics, rushes by her, knocking Sage back some further into the alleyway with a weak cry, trying to hold the push of vomit from leaving her throat.

Is... is that Cambric? She sticks her head out from around the corner, watching as her fighter in arms charges through a sea of dead bodies, leaping on top of someone who seems to be still alive, but missing an arm from the elbow down, and another wave hits her, she pressing her head against the side of the building, which could give way at any second. Another explosion hits a roof above her, she covering her ears with her hands, crouching down. It is all overwhelming, and all way too loud, too much going on for her to think straight or keep wind of what is going on without screaming at the top of her lungs. Battle is not fun, battle is not glorious, it is _chaos_, and she does not do well in chaos. Roanoke wouldn't have wanted this, and he wouldn't have wanted her doing this.

Jane wouldn't have wanted this; her girlfriend didn't beg her parents to help adopt her from the orphanage to have her become a brutal murderer in the thick of things in the Capitol. She didn't fall in love with a murderer or a maniac, but a sweet singing girl from the forests and-

Sage's thoughts are interrupted as a massive hole just to her left is ripped open from an explosion rocking the building, she diving back out into the open fray of the battle. Cambric has disappeared, along with the soldier he must've found, but there's still a legion of Peacekeepers rushing forward to greet them in battle. Valencia is screaming out orders, Lance is back on his feet taking shots behind cover, and Sage is out in the middle of it all, holding onto her axe and her gun wondering what in the _fuck _she thinks she's doing.

It is that single moment of uncertainty that costs Sage Dagoba her life, as a new wave of Peacekeepers flood through the mesh, guns leveled with the line of sight, but she hasn't moved out of the way in time. There's the sound of gunfire, the rapid spray of bullets in a silver arc on a tide of sulfur. One hits her in the shoulder, causing her to drop the axe, the sponsor gift given to her from the Quarter Quell, where Peri Florence wouldn't be proud of her now. The next bullet finds her throat, the third strikes her heart, and the fourth hits her in the head.

Her last thought, as she falls down onto the hilt of the sponsor gift, the axe igniting once more, is of Jane, and how she'd never to get to sing another song with her boyfriend or girlfriend ever again.

* * *

**_Maren Johnson: District 2 Female P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

The tremors have yet to stop. It is a constant ache, a dull one in the deep spires of the Earth, but she can feel them. The sewer system can feel them, and her heart can feel them too, each rattle going off like a gun shell. She isn't sure what is worse, the tremors of who knows what, or Vivian's anger, cascading off of the girl from Ten in waves of crimson and vermillion lines. They started about half an hour ago, sometime around noon, but Maren isn't sure exactly how she knows that. She's been spending the hours biting at her nails, chewing them down to the cuticles and then some, her skin stinging in pain as pockets of air slide onto the destroyed flesh, digging their tendrils of agony a few inches deep, she hissing and clenching at her wrist every few minutes.

The attitude in the group prior to yesterday's Peacekeeper attack led by Amaris - she tries to not even think about the waste of human existence that had been standing besides the girl from Six, who she never liked to begin with - had been jovial, but with needing to flat out murder the group that had come for them yesterday, with Jason's sacrifice, the sour feeling in her stomach has yet to be replaced with another kind. The shallow cut on her upper right arm stings somewhat, but nothing too terrible; it is her hand that is most certainly broken that has Maren having to bite down on her tongue as Cyril bandages it up with some of his shirt, now showing off a bit too much of his clavicle, which had been an odd part to cut. However, and luckily at that, it is not the hand she uses to throw her axe that has been broken, so she's still running on all cylinders.

It is Vivian however that Maren sees the change in. She always thought the girl had been a bit of a spitfire type of gal, but this is different, for how irritable she is. Maren wouldn't even call it an irritation, but just a general buzz of upsetedness - with a good right to, of course, as she's fearing for Jason and wondering what they're even doing on this mission to who even knows where - and she has not been as chatty as before. Cyril and Ponty have picked up those reigns, but it comes to blows last night as Anahita is crying to herself when they settle down for the night, and Maren goes over to comfort her, as Cyril is examining a slight cut on Vivian's forehead.

"_It's okay, Anahita," Maren smiles warmly at her fellow Career, a tiny little body full of vitality and energy._

_The girl wipes at her nose, which is a flushed cherry color underneath one of the white pillars of light swinging above them, but even then, her quivering lip turns into a smile. "Is it, though? Jason-"_

_"Jason will be fine. His father is the mayor of Nine, and I am sure that'll give him some staying power." _

_Cyril finishes wiping away some of the blood off of Vivian's wound, while Ponty is resting up against the far wall, hammer in hand. They lost the air cannon, for the little good it did, and now they're down a man. Maren can sense the tension in everyone, and she can feel it in herself. It being two days since being roused by Vanya - who else is even alive anymore, after all of that chaos? - and she knows everyone has settled into a routine of feeling comfortable. Sure, devouring rats might need be the most healthy form of nutrition, but there's nothing else to do or eat, and it could be a lot worse. Anahita sniffles again, Maren smiling at her, gently thrumming her on the nose, and that slight smile turns into a frown, but it is Vivian's scoff that has everyone looking at their leader._

_"You're seriously crying over Jason?"_

_"Viv-" Cyril breaks in instantaneously, but she cuts him off with a glare. Ponty simply raises an eyebrow, not saying anything, but Maren has moved over to grab her axe. _

_"Anahita, it's war. We'll lose people, okay? He's fine, like Maren said, and there's no reason to cry about it. You're thirteen, not six," their commander snips back at her, she standing up, Cyril going to say something else, but it seems she's removed herself from the conversation._

Vivian apologizes in the morning, over once again, rat - how fun! - but Anahita simply mumbles some incoherent response between the next bite, her knife skewering a piece of meat straight through into the floor. They have no idea where they really ended up, and no matter how hard Cyril or Ponty slammed their weapons or their bodies - Maren is surprised that Cyril doesn't break his shoulder from how hard he slams into the door Jason closed behind him. They're all shouting his name, but it is Vivian that exerts the most anger out of all of them, swearing to herself and hitting her fist on the walls, so it is real thick that she is going to criticize or make fun of Anahita for being upset and concerned for someone else in their group. Pot meet kettle.

However, now with the rumbling they're feeling, the hostility has evaporated like vapor into the ceiling, all of them on guard, weapons close to one another. Maren has no idea where they even are, except for a single marker every few corners they round, a large bright red A in a dotted circle, lines separated every few inches apart, and underneath that, in a fancier manuscript, _Sector. _Sector A, as Maren can read, the one thing her family definitely helped her with, in trying to make her the golden child. No one with the name _Johnson _is ever going to be the pinnacle of perfection in District 2, not after her own parents failed to make names for themselves by the time they've sired Maren. But now, they all of a sudden feel like it is time for her to become someone more than just their daughter?

She-

Maren pauses, with a frown. She's in the back of the column today, with Ponty leading the front instead of Vivian, she falling side by side with Anahita, Cyril between Maren and the two girls. What... what's that noise? It isn't a rumble like what they've been hearing for the last half hour, but something... lighter. She swings her axe back and forth a bit, Cyril noticing that she's stopped moving. He taps Vivian on the shoulder, who then motions to Ponty to get him to stop moving too. Their leader loads an arrow into her bow, ever ready to pounce.

"Maren? What is it?"

"Do you hear that?" she asks. The rumbles have stopped, briefly, her mind instantly thinking something about the rebels against the Capitol forces, which would be a godsend, for she can tell by the shaking that it is explosions. Living in District 2, near the Nut, in a war-crazed place like Two as she does, Maren has been able to tell what type of explosions belong to which devices, and these feel man-made. What she is hearing differently, however, and her heartbeat begins to pick up in her chest.

"I don't hear anything..." Ponty frowns, and he's positioned his hammer into a more offensive position.

"It's... it's lighter than the tremors," Maren's lower lip trembles, she flattening herself against the wall.

The room they're getting closer towards has a foul smell coming from it, almost like the stench of horses combined with feces, and Maren has never liked the smell of horses in the first place to begin with. It is pitch black, for the most part, heading down the hallway. A white beacon of light is placed in the center of the room, another hallway where there are three options to take: going forward, left, or right. The beacon of light is in a spinning motion like a lighthouse lantern, but Maren has only seen them in pictures, never in person. The ivory pillar of light washes over the sides of the hallway, and the noise gets louder and louder the further they inch into the room, everyone starting to seize up together.

Is- is it Aris riding the wings of death towards them again? Maren cannot hold in her surprise at seeing her district partner stand there all glowed up in the hallway looking like a million bucks, with that stupid grin on his face that she wishes she could just smack off of him. It hits her, shortly after settling back down into the grief of the fact they all nearly died, that she almost killed Amaris, almost sliced her from head to toe, but never got the chance. What did her Career training do for all those years if she couldn't even do that? A girl with no weapons but a knife, in her element? Maren shakes her head, trying to keep her mind focused on the current situation. She turns around to face the back wall, the direction where they had come from, when part of the pillar of light washes over the corner of the room, and her heart leaps into her throat.

"Guys?" she whispers out her question, and everyone looks at her, Cyril's dark eyes flashing in the brightness. "What- what is that?"

Maren is referring to some sort of creature she sees in the corner of the room, seemingly to be hanging upside down, hanging from a metallic bar on the side of the wall. The noise Maren hears, a rattling kind of sound like someone clanging a chain up and down a wall is starting to get closer, but the sound seems to be coming at them from all sides, and from beneath them as well. Is there even a level beneath them anymore? Maren thought that they were all in the lowest levels to be had.

"I think..." Anahita ventures first, swallowing heavily, she holding onto her two blades with a death grip. "It's a mutt."

A mutt. Oh great. Maren gets another look at it, the creature hanging upside down on the bars. It seems to be between the size of Anahita and herself, so somewhere at least around five feet tall going from ceiling to floor, as the light passes over it. The body is entirely dark, some sort of leathery kind of skin from the way the creature seems to be breathing as their body folds underneath them. Maren has no idea if the mutt is sleeping or not, but two eyes, crimson and burning in hellfire, peer out from the sheath of darkness. It looks to be some sort of walking bat, with a wingspan that flutters and moves, and every time the bat flaps its wings, she hears the sound, at a louder pitch. It is turning into a roar from some sort of hovercraft, more than just the flapping of wings. A pair of talons cling onto the bars, the bat being upside down, and her heartbeat roars in her ears.

It is the one thing she has never been trained for at the Academy, dealing with mutts. She learns almost every kind of weaponry out there to be had, how to charm people in an interview, walk with heels, learn karate - not that she's very good at it - but it is the one thing that Maren has been faced with for the first time that she's unsure what to do. Careers are never targeted by the mutts in the Games unless it is the finale, and they normally don't show their faces until the middle of the Games where the alliances are all falling apart, picking off weak tributes instead of well, the Careers.

"Cyril... do you know what to do with mutts?" she whispers, trying to keep her voice down, but Maren swears it sounds like a bomb going off. The noise is starting to reverberate around the chamber, and the flap of the wings happen once more, to the point where she can't hear Cyril's response.

All hell breaks loose.

There's a great roar above her head, and something falling free from the roof, it hitting Maren in the back, causing her to fall to the ground with a cry. The beacon of light is knocked over onto the floor, Maren grunting in pain as her axe stumbled out of her hands. Flipping her body over, as the wave passes into the hole in the ceiling, it takes every fiber in her being to not scream. There are at least ten, maybe more, of the mutts hiding in the ceiling, gigantic bat demons from hell with their glowing red eyes and talons. One locks gazes with her, opening its mouth into a shrill pitched scream. She screams back, struggling to get to her feet.

A shadow leaps off of the far wall, the mutt sleeping upside down awakening due to the noise. Vivian curses to herself, notching an arrow into her bow. Maren looks at their leader, her breathing running erratic, and then there's nothing more. The rest of the ceiling collapses, panels falling free, knocking the lamp onto the ground again, Anahita jumping towards it before a panel crushes it and her hands. Another form falls down in between them, and without hesitation, Maren swings her axe at the beast, cutting in its neck. It hisses at her in pain, Vivian stabbing an arrow through the back of its head.

"RUN!" she screams, rather effectively, when something collides into Maren's side. There's another guttural roar and the sound of a wall breaking, and then a flood of more eyes, more of the same burning red. It is Anahita this time who yells out in terror, chucking one of her knifes into the head of one of the mutts. Maren kicks at something in the dark, unable to see what it is, when a pain erupts in her left shoulder.

She cries out a wail of pain, wrenching her axe off of the ground and into the creature's head. Maren tries getting to her feet when another mutt falls through the hole in the roof, almost landing on top of her. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Ponty try racing forwards when the mutt that had been hanging upside down seems to teleport from one side of the room to the other, talons out in a downward slash, it cutting through Ponty's upper arm. A different flood of crimson pours out of the wound, Maren losing her breath, Vivian grabbing Ponty by the back of the shirt and pulling him behind her. Cyril stabs the mutt in the heart, as Maren tries getting to her feet again, slipping on the blood of the kill lying dormant next to her.

The Career tries saying something when another four mutations block the way between her and the rest of them, the last thing she sees before her view is obstructed is Cyril's worried frown, and then nothing. Maren growls at the mutts, but Anahita must've grabbed the search beacon, as the flood of light vanishes, and all Maren can see is the silver of her axe blade and the redness of the beast's eyes. She swings out recklessly, screaming in rage, as she's a Career _dammit, _and if this is to be an arena with mutts and asshole tributes, she's going to survive! Her axe cuts into the neck of another mutt, she wrenching it free, a wave of blood splashing up in the air but she does not know where it lands.

Something falls to the ground behind her, hitting Maren in the back, she falling down to the floor again. She shakes her head in fright, babbling something incoherent, her heartbeat picking up speed in her chest. She can hear Aris's mocking voice in her head, how she's mediocre and always destined for failure, but she will prove him wrong. Maren needs to get home for her mother, to help cure her breast cancer, but her mother might already be dead and why did Anahita take the _fucking _light?

Maren feels a sharp pain ripple through her left ankle, she hissing in pain, something tugging her back while she's trying to crawl forward towards her axe. Her fingers just barely touch the hilt of the axe when another searing shock of agony hits her right ankle, tugging her back. She screams in terror, the weapon falling out of her grasp, a cacophony of mutt screeching filling the air, the hovercraft sound getting closer and closer into her ears again.

"Guys!" she screams out in panic. "Guys, help me!"

There is no response, there is no rescue, as the mutts holding onto her ankles drag her against the floor, her face burning at the contact of the metal.

Something slices her back from the top of her neck to the small of her back, Maren can taste the florid hint of copper in her teeth, the pain is overwhelming, blood boiling, Aris's laugh echoing in her ears, and then nothingness.

* * *

**_Jason Lacey: District 9 Male P.O.V (16)_**

* * *

This is all wrong, and this is not how he expected the day to go. It is his worst nightmare, Jason realizes, a nightmare he's lived a thousand and one times over in his sleep, murmuring to himself while hugging his knees to his chest. The hand on his shoulder looks like his father, but it is not his father's, the hand being slipped inside supple leather, the grip a bit too strong for his liking, there being a pressure that is squeezing down onto his shoulder. His father's touches are gentle, sweet, perhaps firm, but this is shifting into predator territory. He is trying to not look down at the gun in his hand, it seemingly glued to his left hand, right hand pressed up against the trigger. He's standing out on one of the presidential mansion balconies, the wind whipping his hair around, but Jason cannot keep his gaze off of the people kneeling down in front of him.

President Bonnie is off to the side some, blonde hair whipping in the wind as well, and just barely on the horizon, Jason can see plumes of smoke rising in the sky, the occasional tremor in the ground, and the shaking of the earth. It's the rebels, the Phoenixes from the note his father had given him, the same man kneeling down in front of him with his hands tied behind his back, his face bruised and battered, a trickle of blood pouring out of his father's mouth. He is supposed to be back home, running District 9 like the mayor he is, but Jason is looking at his father, who won't even look _him _in the eye, but is glaring at the woman who has orchestrated all of this. The Peacekeeper holding Jason at bay, while also firmly reminding him of the gun he has clenched in his hands, is not Amaris, she standing on the opposite side of the balcony away from Bonnie, but she has her own gun out as well.

At least he doesn't have to look at Aris's stupid face, with his cocked smile and greased back hair and skinny arms; he hates him, he hates that Career from District Two so much he's never hated anyone or anything else more in his life. Well, maybe the woman making him do these things, he's not so sure. Rodric is dead, he knows this, for he isn't an idiot, at the way Bonnie speaks to him with the tone and cadence in her voice. It isn't, 'put him alongside Rodric', but 'put him in Rodric's room', as if he had owned possession of it, and no longer does. How did he die? Shot in the back of the head? Quartered? How will he die? Jason knows he's a dead man, he can feel it creeping up the back of his spine and biting him in the back of the neck, death's bite, regardless of if he does what the president tells him to or not. Otherwise, why have the Peacekeeper hold onto him?

What would happen if he pressed the gun up against his head? Would anyone care? Would someone intervene? But, question is, would they intervene and try to save him? Or would it be all on the principle?

Jason has no idea how his father, or his mother for that matter, as he's told she is somewhere in that pit of death, are even in the Capitol, but he doesn't have the time to ask them what is going on, or why it matters to him in the slightest. From the little rundown Amaris gives him late last night, when she awakes him by tapping on his jail cell, is that his family has flown into the Capitol on hovercrafts, and that they're prepared, alongside several hundred citizens from Nine, to fight. Bonnie is going to be having a messenger invite his parents to the mansion to talk negotiations, but he does not expect them to be _this,_ with his parents kneeling down before him, looking like they've been through the ringer, with the rebels being presumptuously slaughtered half a city away. Another tremor rocks the foundations of the mansion, and Jason can hear the faint pops of gunfire in the distance, he shuddering and closing his eyes briefly.

Bonnie claps her hands together, but no one else on the balcony has said a word. "Well, this is a fine and beautiful day, wouldn't you say?"

"You mentioned negotiations," Jason's voice comes out in a tremble, he trying to hold onto the gun the best he can without it going off. He doesn't look at the president, but out of the corner of his eye he can see she looks directly at him, a viper aimed for the poor doe nipping at the daffodils in the middle of a field. "You didn't say anything about him being beaten up!"

"He resisted," the president shrugs her shoulders. "I asked your father to not resist, and he refused. So, end result, don't resist," she smiles at him, but Jason thinks about what it would mean if he were to point the gun at her. With Amaris and her undying loyalty, she'd probably shoot him dead then and there. The point is to stay alive, to keep living. However, when all of his life is here - where is his sister? Did she join them? Would she be left back home in Nine during all this chaos? - and he's this close to losing it, how does one move on?

"What do you need me for?" Jason spits out at her, not caring how venomous he sounds. His father might've brought him up right, to be gentlemanly and scholarly, but this woman, this _devil_ who has already killed his district partner in a game of chess that no one else is playing has been all of the cards down wrongly.

"Something easy," Bonnie tells him, with a sickeningly sweet smile that has his arms itch, but he does not dare scratch them. She gets closer to him, Jason wanting to take a step back, but the hand on his shoulder keeps him firmly rooted in place.

The president is dressed in a sea green ensemble, while as Jason looks over at his father, he is in a white dress shirt and dark slacks, blood starting to spill onto the color. He can't get a good look at anyone else on the platform, for he is still in his training uniform, smelling like the maintenance walls. Did Vivian and the rest of them get away? He wants to believe they did, but yesterday all his two captors could talk about is how the rest of them have delivered themselves into some sort of personal hell... someone's playground and lair... but who could that belong to?

He can smell Bonnie's perfume, a sharp lilac scent mixed in with the warfare on the horizon, but he visibly recoils the closer she gets to him, she taking a step back and pursing her lips. The smile vanishes instantaneously, she frowning at him. "It's rather simple, Mr. Lacey. Your father here, alongside your mother, are leading some District 9 forces in battle against us. Unless you want your entire district to be slaughtered after this battle is lost, in which it will certainly be lost, you will convince your father to have the army surrender. And if he refuses to do so, you will kill him."

Jason's eyes bug out of his head. "I'll have to _what?_"

"Kill him," Amaris says, cutting in, but a quick glare from Madam President Rodney has the Peacekeeper filing back to her corner.

"I shouldn't help you," he bites back. "You- you can't _force _me to help you and-"

"If he refuses and you refuse I can just kill you both, and then your entire district dies," Bonnie smiles again, hands clasping with another. "Mr. Lacey, this is not a negotiation where you have equal terms with me. I am ordering you to do this, as your leader, as your president, as your _queen,_ that you do this service for me." _Queen? _Pah, Jason would like to see the woman actually ruling anything. It is a discussion at dinner, the week before the reaping where Jason finds himself selected, that the wife of the recently deceased Calhoun not knowing how to run a country, something thick and heavy in irony.

Did saying all of that cause this? He's not sure, but Jason's line of thought is sidetracked by the way Bonnie walks over to his father, leaning down in front of him, tilting her head to the side, before wiping up the trickle of blood and then smearing it down the bridge of his nose. His father hisses at her, but he doesn't say anything, Jason frowning at that, trying to not focus on how fast his heart is beating in his chest. His father has never been once to mince words, always one to speak out and say the truth, for it is how he becomes mayor after all, putting in the elbow grease that is required to do so. Bonnie makes a soft sound in the back of her throat, before getting to her feet, walking to stand right next to him. Jason doesn't take his eyes off of her. For a second his hand goes lax, the one holding onto the gun, but the Peacekeeper at his back guides his hand back onto it, a lump forming in Jason's throat.

"I won't do it," he says, resolute, but his throat is trembling as he speaks, and another tremor shakes the ground, but he stays still, and he locks eyes with the president.

"I am sure I can change your mind," Bonnie says, rather matter of fact.

"_I won't do it!"_ he yells at her, even causing his father to flinch in place.

"You know, has he ever even told you the truth, Jason?" Bonnie asks him, placing a hand on his father's shoulder, he squirming in his bonds to get away from her, but she tightens her grip into talons, keeping him at bay, almost forcing him to be in an upright position. "The real truth?" Jason has no idea what she's talking about. But, but in a way he does. His father has never said that he loves him, or that he's proud of him. Maybe the occasional pat on the back, but nothing on the side that he's thinking of. He knows, as he's heard it said, that he doesn't look anything like his parents, but Jason doesn't feel like arguing about it. Questions he's always wanted to ask on the tip of his tongue, but Jason never forges the question any further. Any time he wants to ask something even remotely similar to being appreciated in the Lacey household, his father looks at him with a glare. Never too brusque, never too cold, but nothing loving, nothing where Jason leaves the world feeling warm and wanted.

"I- I don't..." he tries babbling, but Bonnie steps closer to him, away from his father, and has gotten back into his face once more.

"Yes you do, Jason, you know," she nods at him, diamond eyes alit with glee. "He's not your father, Jason," It is like he's sucker punched in the gut, his father shouting some sort of expletive that is lost to the wind as a Peacekeeper hits him in the back of the head, causing him to fall to the ground. Bonnie takes a step back, looking at the patriarch of Nine with distaste in her gaze, disgust in her voice. "Since the man you call your father is mayor, my late husband and I were close with all of the mayors and know every bit about their personal life," and then, back at Jason. "You are not Jason Lacey, my dear, but a Jason with no last name." If he didn't have a last name, and a man of power and riches gave him one, why should that bother him? Why- why would it even slightly make him angry? "You aren't his real son, but your sister, who is actually your step-sister is his real child. You're just one he wanted, but not what he could get..." No, no, _no,_ this is a lie. She's lying to him! She has to be!

He raises his hand, the one not holding a gun, pointing a finger at her, trembling. "No, that- that can't be!"

"The reason why he never told you he loved you? The reason why he never told you he was proud of you?" Bonnie's eyes are burning a ferocity that Jason has never seen before, and in the distance, a fiery explosion laces the sky, but he keeps his eyes on the woman in front of him, the woman holding the keys to his future. "You were never his to begin with," her eyes flare up, like exploding stars, and Jason's heart sinks into his stomach... why won't his father look him the eye? "How could it come to light that the mayor of District 9's son came from somewhere illegitimate? He couldn't let that happen!" she gets right in the boy from Nine's face, but he can only look at his father who won't even look him in the eye. "You started asking questions because you could sense it. You started wondering if you really were his son. His wife, your mother, she didn't love you, and you knew that, but your father too?" the president scoffs. "He rigged the reaping to send you into the Games, he admitted it to Calhoun and I just before my husband died, and I decided to keep him around, cause how awesome for the Games would it be for you to learn of your past?" Jason has no response to this, to any of this. "It looks like he's betrayed both of us, Mr. Lacey. Why don't you do something about that?"

She steps away from the tribute, Jason's not-father starting to say something, but the Peacekeeper holding him at bay grabs him by the throat, pinning him back, throwing the other gloved hand over his mouth. Jason's ears are ringing, probably burning, a dull heartbeat echoing in his head. His life is a lie... isn't it? He remembered asking his father why he didn't have their eyes, their dark eyes but more brightly lit ones, and there had never been a response. His sister had their eyes, why didn't he? Bonnie is telling the truth, that he's some random kid who the mayor decides to have as his son... that shouldn't be anything to act upset over but rigging the reaping to send him to the games? Because... because of _what? Why? _Jason looks at his father - he still has no idea really what to even think - tears spilling down his cheeks, the phrases blocking in his throat, questions he'll never get to ask.

His grip on the pistol tightens, but he doesn't raise it to shoot it.

Bonnie sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. She grabs the nearest pistol, the Peacekeeper holding the mayor from speaking, and shoots the man in the head.

Jason steps back violently, it even shocking the Peacekeeper that had been holding onto him. He hears Amaris say something out into the air, it lost forever as the echo of the deafening gunshot echoes against the walls of the balcony. Jason's father falls down to the ground face first, a pool of blood following the soft thud of his body onto the concrete. It is so shockingly red that Jason feels a wave of nausea hit his throat. Seeing the deaths of the tributes on screen is haunting enough, or listening to Sophiana's fading screams as Jules's jaw folds like a book against the linoleum floor of the training center, but for some reason it isn't as shocking as it is then as it is now. A scream flies from his throat, untethered and unhinged, his entire life collapsing in one fell swoop as if someone has taken a wrecking ball to his memories.

Amaris has the back of her hand pressed against her mouth, head turned away, but Bonnie stares at the body with a smile on her face careful not to step in the blood. Jason's head is buzzing like a swarm of bees has attacked him, and without thinking, he steps forward out of the Peacekeeper's grip holding onto him, turning around, and firing straight at the man's chest from close-up range. A smear of scarlet splatters across Jason's chest, some getting on his face and in his hair. He swivels around, shooting and missing at the Peacekeeper standing just shy of Bonnie's left shoulder. The president flinches, and then every Peacekeeper left on the balcony, in which there's about five of them all pull their weapons out. Amaris has hers too, though she is the last to do it.

Tears stream down Jason's cheeks, he unable to hear the thought process in his head, just a constant babbling of incoherent thoughts running on a treadmill into an ocean. Without connecting the two steps together, Jason brings the barrel of the gun to his neck, Bonnie crying out something but he doesn't hear it either. The sky is burning red, the stars on fire and falling to Earth, and he can hear the weeping tears of widows in the streets, of his little sister finding out her entire family is dead - half-sister, the mocking voice in his head reminds him, half-sister - and he lowers his finger on the trigger, but at the last second Jason wrenches the gun away from his neck, racing forward to Bonnie, pressing the gun up against the woman's forehead.

The president simply narrows her eyes at him, a dance of dragons in the sulfur laced sky. Jason pushes the barrel of the gun harder into his forehead, eyes burning from the tears, but he doesn't press the trigger. He should, this woman has stolen his entire life, why shouldn't she die?

"Amaris," the president calls out, Jason hearing the lion's roar of his heartbeat over everything else.

Without hesitation, Amaris fires a shot into the back of Jason's left leg, it exiting out through his knee, bringing him down for the count, the gun falling out of his grasp, Bonnie tiptoeing away from him. _Die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, DIE! _The pain reaches his brain halfway, he stuck on adrenaline, but he can hear Amaris muttering to herself as she grips his shoulder, and when he looks up at her, it is the last thing he'll ever do. There's a frown on her face, a grim and cold one, but there's no empathy in her eyes, no emotion in the slightest.

"I'm sorry," she whispers to him, but he doesn't believe her. If she's sorry, she wouldn't be doing what it is she's doing to him.

Her shot enters between his eyes, and he has no idea where it exits out of.

* * *

**_Anahita Cascade: District 4 Female P.O.V (13)_**

* * *

She needs to stop putting the light on the creatures, as the searchlight wobbles in her right hand, Anahita trying to keep her gaze straight ahead despite the blackness they're all rushing into. Maren's screams have long faded into obscurity, and she knows she's dead, a fellow Career to the mutts that must've come from the Head Gamemaker. There is a certain smell on the air, something resembling that of sewage, Anahita trying to block the fumes out, but blocking one sense out brings the screeching of the bat mutts out at her. Occasionally, when she looks back, the feral glow of crimson eyes scares her back to the present. Vivian tries firing arrows back behind them into the dark, but she has to stop to do it, and every time she thinks about pausing, Cyril wrenches her back to the rest of them.

Her feet are tired, but they've only been running for just a few minutes if at most, diving left and right, underneath pipes and rounding corners while the mutts bound after them, bats from hell with their glowing eyes and talons and wingspans the size of her. There's a closed door ahead of them, Ponty raising his hammer and smashing it open, and to Anahita's happiness, the room is fully lit, the four of them bursting into it, but skidding to a stop. One of the mutts is in the room, seemingly waiting for them, it hissing at them the moment they crossed the threshold. Vivian fires a loaded arrow at it, but it nimbly dodges it, leaping for them. She doesn't have to utter a command when the four of them scatter, falling opposite sides of each other, Anahita smashing into one of the pillars erected in the middle of the room.

The sounds of the other mutts are getting closer, her heartbeat starting to accelerate in her chest. Cyril is the first one up after diving out of the way, he driving his sword into the bat's back. It screeches in pain, swinging a claw back at him, he wrenching the sword free. A gush of blood falls onto the floor, Anahita's heart leaping into her throat. The blood is black, as dark as the shadows from the tunnel they ran from. It surprises Cyril, the sizzle of the blood landing on the ground, he standing there stunned for a second. Anahita brandishes her blade out some, stabbing it straight in the open mouth, a cavernous pit where the hopes and dreams of tributes would go to die. It shrieks from the stab, she wrenching her arm back, kicking the beast away before any of its blood could scatter onto her skin.

It falls back, the mutt, knocking into one of the bats that had flown into the room, clinging onto a pillar. Vivian is on her feet now, over by Ponty, an arrow loaded straight for its heart. She fires the shot, the arrow whizzing through the air, but it misses it by a good country mile, hitting the wall. Didn't Vivian get a ten? And she's firing like _that? _The mutt snarls at her, leaping off of the pillar towards them, Ponty swinging his hammer into its chest, mouth open wide in a ferocious yell. Anahita's gaze darts towards the entrance that they had come from, two more pairs of bleeding eyes breaking the veil of darkness, the mutts crawling through. Her weapon is the closest quarter of them all, she thinking fast and dipping her blade in the blood of one of the dead mutts.

She falls side by side with Cyril, they nodding at each other. He's always looked out for her, and he's admitted to her that she is some sort of a little sister to him, and she wants to view him as an older brother, one who doesn't invalidate her feelings, to absorb her frustrations and her sadness, and to be the only one rooting for her. She couldn't betray him, not the way Jules had wanted her to, in what feels like seventy years ago. She just wanted to meet Bonnie, to tell her what an honor it meant to fight for her in the Hunger Games, but it has all come undone in a matter of days, and if the words are to be believed, the woman has tried to murder her, and she already murdered her district partner, someone Anahita cared for. Who's to say she hasn't organized this hit?

Anahita throws the searchlight at the mutts, hoping that bright lights would disable them, but that wouldn't make any sense given that they're fighting them in a lit room. She misses her throw, the lantern having a bit of weight to it. It smashes onto the ground, but it is a good enough distraction, as one of the mutts turns their head towards it, the sound of shattering glass. One of Vivian's arrows hits it in the eye, Cyril's sword thrusting into its chest bringing the beast down for the count, a splash of slick black blood flooding the floor. Anahita almost steps in it, she holding back the nausea in her throat. Some of the blood runs over the exposed wire from the shattered lantern, and before her very eyes, she sees sparks ignite from the combination, a fire lighting up across the entrance.

"Their blood is flammable?" Ponty cries out in incredulousness. "Are you serious?"

"M- maybe they're scared of fire..." Vivian suggests, there no longer being the timbre of confidence in her voice.

She is immediately disproven, Anahita and Cyril breaking apart again as another mutt soars through the sky, wings folded together, colliding with another column, but this time it breaks straight through it, shattering it immediately. The ceiling gives a groan, she looking up worriedly. Vivian fires another arrow at the mutt, but misses again, she cussing to herself. Looking back at the doorway, there's another few sets of eyes making themselves known, but Anahita has lost count of how many she's seen, and of how many they've killed. They need to be running out eventually, _right? _Ponty smashes his hammer into the creature's skull, the wings folding up on each other like a crumbling piece of paper mache, she and Cyril making their way back further into the room. There is a doorway in the far left corner, Cyril reaching it first, Anahita and Ponty racing inside the corridor.

Vivian is the last to enter, keeping an arrow trained on one of the mutts as it locks eyes with her. Her arrow finds its heart, it collapsing against the wall, but the next hallway they race down is only dimly lit. Anahita wipes away at the sweat pouring down her face, trying to keep the nausea churning in her stomach at bay. Did Maren suffer in her final moments? She hopes she didn't, the girl didn't deserve that. If- Anahita's thought process is cut short as one of the walls gives way, the rest of the room behind them collapsing, and whatever is above them, whether it be an apartment or part of the city, must be destroyed now. She goes to comment something when the wall in front of them breaks, another mutt stepping through the hole it created.

Anahita holds her blade close to her, screaming at the mutt, which roars back at her. She dives forward, between the creature's legs, stabbing at its back from the other side. It screeches, she covering her face before the wings could slash her eyes open. Cyril takes the beast's head clean off with his next swing, but Vivian and Ponty have their heads turned to behind them, as there is a rumbling coming from the rubble behind them. A talon bursts through, moving the collapsed ceiling out of the way, her next arrow finding its hand. The mutt recoils out of pain, as the head Cyril slashed off lands on Anahita's left leg, the blood contacting her exposed skin, she swallowing an agonizing scream. Cyril helps wrench her to her feet, she biting down on her tongue, holding back the tears threatening to spill down her cheeks.

Another mutt must've tried sticking its head out, trying to push through the rubble, Ponty's hammer slamming down against it, the head coming clean off as well. Anahita swears to herself, something entirely unlike what a girl her age should be saying, but she cannot move her leg as much, it falling a bit lame. She leans on Cyril for support, he hobbling with her, as Vivian and Ponty take the lead now. They're coming up to a staircase, and at the top of the staircase, a doorway, which must lead them either back to the outside, or to another level of the maintenance tunnels, the same level where they encountered Amaris and Aris and when everything went to shit. Ponty reaches the top of the staircase first, pressing up against the door, but it doesn't budge. Vivian is the next one to reach the top, she having an arrow trained down the staircase while Cyril helps Anahita hobble up each step.

"Vivian, help me with the door," Ponty grunts out, he pressing all of his body weight against it. "It's too heavy for just me."

"Cyril-" she tries speaking, but the male from Six isn't having it. The screeching of the mutts can be heard getting closer, over the din of the hallway, rocks falling and crumbling at the other end, the last few breaking through the collapsed ceiling.

"Vivian, _help me!_" Ponty practically yells at her, she lowering the bow and joining him. The two grunt in exertion together, the door barely opening, grinding against the floor, but it looks like the two of them won't be able to hold onto it for very long. They're almost at the top of the stairs when a hissing noise hits Anahita's ears, and all of a sudden Cyril is no longer helping her stand up straight.

She looks behind her, one of the mutts having grabbed him by the shoulder and flinging him down the stairs. His sword skitters against the wall, out of reach, he on his back while the mutt towers over him. Vivian cries out his name, but if she lets go of the door it'll shut again, and Anahita has no idea how many more mutts are on their tail, or if Ponty will be able to keep the door open any longer. Cyril's shoulder is bleeding, talon marks slicing pale flesh open, scarlet droplets streaking the ground. Her mouth goes dry as the cry of another mutt, maybe two, fills the hallway, alongside the one already stuck with them.

The bat that can stand on its hind legs looks between Anahita and Cyril, then back at the District 1 male, advancing on him. He tries reaching for his sword, his other hand applying pressure to the wound. Anahita grits her teeth together, and then without a second thought, yells at the mutt. It turns back around to look at her, she colliding with it, left leg screaming in protest, blade in hand as she hits the creature straight in the chest. The two dive over Cyril, her knee skinning on the stair, the mutt hitting its head against the railing, but the beast lands atop Cyril's blade as he almost tries going for it.

"Anahita!" he cries out.

"Go!" she yells at him. "Go with Vivian and Ponty! I know they can't keep the door open for long!"

"Anahita, no!" Vivian yells at her, and she's never heard the girl from Ten, their fearless leader who is not afraid of anything ever sound so scared.

The beast roars at her, lashing out at her, its wings crippled underneath its body, Anahita holding her blade out so the mutt chomps down on her blade. Out of the corner of her eye she can see another beast rounding the bend, Cyril struggling to get to his feet. The mutt she's attacking roars at her, one of its talons rising up and slashing her across the cheek, and just above the eyebrow, a torrent of blood pouring down her face, blinding her temporarily. The next thing she knows, Anahita is being thrown in the air down between the other mutt, Cyril, Ponty, and Vivian all screaming her name, but she can't hear anything else over the screeching of the bats. Dracula. Multiple Dracula. _Whatever the fuck they are!_

Anahita blinks the blurs of white out of the edge of her vision as the mutt she had been attacking leaps for her, but it only gets a few feet out of it before falling back onto the ground. She stabs at it repeatedly, wrenching her knife in and out of the creature's back, but she can no longer hear Vivian or Ponty or Cyril calling her name, the Career's blade stained black with the creature's blood, mangled beyond reason. The one that had entered the fray screams a challenge at the tributes at the stairs, but they're unable to reach her in time, they'll be unable to help, and she has no idea how many are left.

She rips the knife free from the mutt's back, going to face the other one when it brings a talon across her chest, slicing just above her stomach. A torrent of crimson hits the floor, some of it spilling over her hands, Anahita feeling woozy, head swinging back and forth some. She thrusts her blade outwards, slicing the mutt just above the shoulder, but the bat behind her, still hanging onto its last bit of life bites her in the calf, Anahita wrenching her head back in a scream. Another gush of blood spills out of the wound, she slipping underneath all of the mess, falling to the ground. Barely holding onto the knife, she's able to stab the mutt in the head, ripping the blade free as the second mutt looms over her, talon slicing downwards, cutting just over her heart.

The girl from Four lets out a pained cry, and with her last exertion of strength, stabs the mutt directly into the underside of the jaw. It lets out a weak cry, just like her, before falling onto her with a weak flop, the echoes of the screeching dissipating against the white walls stained with black blood, red blood, and every other shade Anahita can think of.

Impulsiveness. Volunteering, calling out and beating some uppity eighteen year-old to the stage. A shred of plastic dummies on the training center floor, her cussing and rage filling the empty noise.

Somewhere, a spot in the world where only a select few are able to go, her last view is the black leather of a wing draping over her eyes as they close shut, the bone handle of her knife resting up against her neck.

Anahita cannot remember when her life force finally gives out, but eventually, it indeed does, along with the cries of Cyril, Vivian, Ponty, and everyone else she's failed along the way.

* * *

**_Cambric Vogel: District 8 Male P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

Everything has gone to hell in a handbasket. Cambric has lost count of the total number of bodies he's seen, or the total number of people he's carried in his arms on the way back to camp over the hill that has died, only to return to the fray. So many missed lives, so many that have slipped through his hands, and he cannot see the darkness of his skin underneath all the dust and blood dripping from his fingertips. He's stepped over Sage's body, it littered with bullet holes, he trying to hold back the choked sob, as this is war and losses are inevitable, but he never disliked her. The next time he goes round, her body is buried underneath broken bits of a building, her head cracked open, spilling brain matter onto the street, the sight so revolting that he has to dip into an alleyway and puke onto the ground.

It is an absolute mess of warfare in the Square, and he knows they're losing. Lance, Rennie, Valencia... everyone is fighting strong, no one fighting harder than Seth who is stabbing and shooting his way through wave after wave, but even then it is not enough. The blade Cambric is holding onto is slicked copper with someone's blood, but it isn't even the blood of an attacking Peacekeeper, but of someone on their side, from one of the upper districts like Two or Three, they slipping backwards on a step coated in the lifeforce of yet another casualty, and directly onto his blade. Cambric throws it down in fright and terror, but then picks it up immediately after, having to slice an attacker's throat open without hesitation, they having a blade raised for him as well. It is the first life he's ever taken, his slice cutting through the covering around the Peacekeeper's neck like it is wrapping paper, a torrent of vermillion spilling onto his front.

He is now crouched down in one sector, a bit away from most of the fight, for there's a Peacekeeper with a machine gun hooked into the wall firing away, anyone caught off guard getting shot to death, almost floating in midair from the attack, hovering in place before being a reed blowing in the breeze as they flop onto the ground. The Peacekeeper goes to reload, Cambric advancing towards another wall, a trash can next to it knocked over, something burning from within. He peeks his head around the corner when another burst of gunfire streams free, he going back just in time, but not quick enough for one of the bullets to graze his cheek. He hisses in pain, bringing a hand up to his face to dab the wound away. His boyfriend would be better right now, in all of this, always the one to have a level head in the field of combat. This is what he signed up for, and this is what he must do, but God, if only Loden could be here with him.

"_If he was," _Cambric tells himself through gritted teeth, _"He'd be dead. He'd die and I wouldn't know what to do with myself._"

He takes another peek from behind cover just in time to see Lance Viel, from a higher up vantage point land atop the Peacekeeper at the machine gun, knocking the man to the ground. Ripping the gun from his pocket free, he fires straight into the man's helmet, shattering it, and there's a spray of copper into the air, Cambric forgetting how to breathe for a moment. The street they're on is silent for a moment, as another tremor shakes the ground, and another building gives way, a lamppost bulb shattering and keeling over. Cambric races forward, trying to make his way to the victor when a waylaid RPG makes him hit the deck, his chin scuffing up against the torn street, when the owner of said fired RPG makes themselves known.

The man no longer has his helmet on, and Cambric has seen him before, as it'd be impossible to. Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro, and he has his gun in his hand, eyes searching the street, before landing on Lance. Cambric barely has enough time to cry out a warning when the Head Peacekeeper rushes at the Hunger Games victor. Lance looks up right as the other man collides straight into him, the victor from One's gun flying away from him. Cambric jumps, unsure what to do, flattening himself against another wall as another two Peacekeepers make their way down the street. He pulls his own gun out, holding it close to his chest. He's never fired it, and he knows he isn't going to be the best shot in the world, but he has to try.

Breathing deeply to himself, imagining his boyfriend placing a kiss against his neck as a sign of good luck, he rounds the corner, firing one shot, it slicing through one of the men's elbows. Just off by the machine gun, Lance has thrown Lazarus off of him, reaching for his own weapon, taking a shot, but his movement is too erratic, the bullet bouncing haphazardly across the street. Lazarus digs his hand onto the belt at his waist, pulling free a grenade as Cambric dives for cover again, down an alley onto his left as the Peacekeeper he downed is getting dragged back by the man's associate. The grenade Lazarus throws lands just near Lance's feet, the victor swearing a mile a minute as he kicks it away from him, getting to his feet. There's an explosion, a gigantic upheaval of dirt, cobblestone, and concrete into the air, Cambric covering his ears due to the noise. When the dust settles, Lazarus has disappeared, and Lance has too, leaving Cambric all alone.

Inching forward, stepping over another corpse whose had their tongue blown clean off, mouth hanging limply open just by the mandible, Cambric gets a clear look across the street, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. He's seen glimpses of Seth throughout the fight, and of Aris Lindel as well, his eyes searching for Amaris O'Hara but there's been no sign of the girl from Six. Valencia Shale rushes by him in a blur, sword out, she striking someone he can no longer see, and there's a scream of pain from a more masculine voice, but then Cambric sees it, his gaze narrowing in on it. Aris, gun out, hiding behind a light post that is larger than his body width, clearly engaged with Seth, who is hiding up against the shattered fountain of the Head Gamemaker, the one the square is named after. Cambric can't get a good shot at Aris, for he'd take it if he could.

Seth is bleeding from a gnarly cut across his forehead, and it looks like he's been shot once in the shoulder, blood spilling out of the wound. The boy from Five looks around the corner as Aris takes another shot, chipping off a brick from the building. Cambric swears to himself, bringing his knife out too. Maybe- maybe he could throw it and get lucky with it? He got a twelve, somehow, by showing how he is able to injure himself without bleeding. How do you kill someone without... _fuck. _Seth tries his luck again, this time Aris firing just at the right moment, and Cambric's eyes widen as he sees a hole suddenly appear in the boy from Five's side, another torrent of blood spilling free from the wound, Seth falling back into the alley.

"Seth!" Cambric yells out, alerting everyone to his position, Aris whirling around with a frown, as he can clearly recognize the voice but...

Praying to some sort of deity that he isn't shot, Cambric leaps out from under cover, holding his gun out and taking random shots into the dust collected streets, dashing over to Seth. He reaches the boy from Five without much incident, although another explosion sends someone flying and cracking their head open against the side of an abandoned Peacekeeper truck. Who knows where Lance ended up, or where Rennie is, for the last time Cambric saw their Avox leader, he had been covered in blood head to toe, but the blood isn't red like he expects, but almost black, as black as the grips of the weapons he abhors. Aris is the least of his concerns as he reaches Seth, calling out his name again as he crouches down next to him. He couldn't save Sage, but he can save Seth if he hurries.

"Seth, Seth," he says rather frantically, trying to keep his composure. Another sound of machinegun fire, another explosion, but Cambric keeps his attention on the tribute in front of him. In an arena, they'd be enemies, but he's valiantly decided to fight for the rebels, and he is not going to let him die if Cambric has anything to say about it. One look at the wounds, and his heart sinks into his stomach. It is worse than what he thought, as it looks like another bullet had entered just underneath the liver, and one in the middle of his ribcage, potentially slicing open a lung.

The male from Five's eyes are glassy, his hands up in the air and shaking, he trying to speak, but there's only a croak of pain coming from the bubble of exasperated noises in the teenager's throat. "Cambric?" Seth asks, after a pained moment, the boy from Eight locking eyes with the wounded tribute in his arms. "Cambric?" Seth repeats.

"Yeah, it's me, Seth," he says, wrenching his backpack off of his body, setting it down on the ground. He opens up every pouch available to him, only a few bandages left, one strip of gauze, and he's run out of antibacterial ointment and other salves, the water in his mouth drying up.

"Are we winning?"

"We're creaming them," Cambric lies through his teeth, and he has no idea why but he can feel the prickle of tears at the edges of his vision, slightly blurring his vision. "You did the most, Seth," and he rips a strip of gauze free, pressing it into his left hand. "Press that against the gunshot wound on your side, and I'll help clean the one in your other side, okay Seth?"

If this had been any other time, Cambric's blood pressure wouldn't be roaring in his chest. This is why he's loved joining the medical field, after looking into his boyfriend's eyes, seeing the horrific burns all up and down his arms, or the tanginess of the tears against his cheeks that trickle onto his lips from their first kiss. Cambric presses the gauze against Seth's right side, alarmed by just how quickly the bandages bloom scarlet, weighing down the material almost immediately. He goes to dig back into the pack when Seth lets out a light sigh, resting his head back against the ground. A streaking missile soars through the sky, smashing into a building, raining dust and bricks down onto the alley Cambric is in, but he notices the way Seth's left hand falls lax onto the ground, the bandage he had been pressing up against it blowing up in the breeze.

"Seth?" he asks, shaking him by the shoulder that is uninjured. "Seth, can you hear me?" There's no response, just a liquid blue stare, devoid of life, up at the sky where Cambric can no longer see the sun, just clouds lined with dust and the choking smog of industry and warfare. Rennie, as the Phoenix, did promise to burn Panem, didn't he? To burn Panem down in the wake of it all? Tears spill down his cheeks this time, not just the feeling of it any longer, his lower lip quivering. It's another life lost, another statistic to be chalked up when all of this over... another life he couldn't save. "Seth, c'mon, I know there's fight left in you! We aren't winning! We're fucking losing!"

His sobs break free, untethered to anything, and he can hear Valencia screaming, and he can hear Lance shouting orders, but all Cambric can focus on is the heaviness of the bloodied gauze he's holding onto, or Sage's shattered skull, body covered in bullet holes. When he looks down at Seth's dead body, kneeling in a pool of blood, it is no longer just the assassin from District 5, but he sees Magdalena's face in the curve of the nose, or the same teal in his boyfriend's eyes, the corpse of his boyfriend who he could've failed to save from that factory fire lying down in front of him.

"Please, no," he whispers, hoping someone would answer him. "Please don't be dead, no, Seth, don't be dead, please..." Cambric begs, resting his head down onto Seth's chest, hoping to hear the tiger's roar of a heartbeat, but there's nothing. Silence. An unloaded gun chamber. A heart that no longer can beat its on tune, pump to a steady rhythm... another life lost in the rebellion.

"Retreat!" Cambric can barely hear Valencia yelling over the din of another RPG streaking the sky. "Retreat! The battle is lost! Head back to camp, go!"

He doesn't want to get up. He simply can't.

Something soars through the sky, whistling on the wind, before landing onto the wall just a foot up or so from his head, and Cambric then looks up, seeing a Capitol hovercraft streak across the sky, the shining silver and platinum metal from the angel of death mocking him down below on the streets. Cambric locks eyes with the device embedded in the wall, it beeping slowly, synchronously with his heartbeat that is very much alive. A mortar. Shit. Cambric grins to himself, and he's never felt a more genuine smile ever spread across his face, not even after kissing his boyfriend for the first time, or when Loden gets down on one knee in the middle of a seventeen hour work shift, proposing with a ring made of sticks and twigs... Cambric will ensure that is his last memory, not of Seth's broken body, or Sage's, or Magdalena's, or of the other lives he's failed.

The mortar explodes, Cambric's body igniting, and for the first time in the rebellion he has achieved Phoenix status, taking flight and burning bright.

"_I'm burning..._" he thinks to himself, almost with a smile. "_I'm burning away. I'm burning to-"_

_Burning away to ash._

* * *

**16th: Sage Dagoba, 17, District 7 Female. Killed in the rebellion via shot to death. Created by AlexFalTon. I didn't honestly expect myself to love Sage as much as I did. She had a lot to do in distancing herself from Peri, but in a way Sage has even evolved past that, with her fiery nature, but juxtaposed by her softer attitude, and her singing and I just knew this would be the end for her, where she'd want to go out swinging, but in warfare those on the front lines usually end up being the worst casualties we see. Sage, thank you for existing, I loved you. **

**15th: Maren Johnson, 16, District 2 Female. Killed in the rebellion via Constantine's Dracula mutts. Created by Crashed Ice24. Maren was a tribute I did end up pretty much revolutionizing from the form I was given, only due to the fact that the type of character she would've initially been was found in Vivian, Amaris, Magdalena, Sage, and Bloom and it felt weird to have another female character be like that, and I'll be honest, I liked the direction I took her, and she was a great addition to the Tigress Company. Maren, I'm just happy you're away from Aris.**

**14th: Jason Lacey, 16, District 9 Male. Killed in the rebellion via shot twice by Amaris. Created by ilvidis. Jason is a tribute I liked, but actually one of the more mellow ones to cross the line amid so many personalities that we've had. His backstory was changed just a bit, but I did know I wanted a bombshell to dropped for him, to add a bit of spice before I straight up ripped the cord out. I think a lot of you expected his death, for being in Bonnie's clutches, but what leverage does she have now to use? Jason, I'm sorry for what I did to you, but I'd still do it in a heartbeat again.**

**13th: Anahita Cascade, 13, District 4 Female. Killed in the rebellion via Constantine's Dracula mutts. Created by Reader Castellan. I think she is one of those tributes where you all disliked her but liked her at the same time, and since we aren't in an arena, you were all able to warm up to her in a way I was hoping you would. I really liked Anahita, and I loved the dynamics I got to give her with Aris, Cyril, Jules, and the other Tigress members, for being a short ball of energy and pure violence, and I started to cry writing her sacrifice. Your name will live on by those who will remember you, Anahita.**

**12th: Seth Cables, 17, District 5 Male. Killed in the rebellion via bleeding out to wounds given by Aris. Created by Nemris. Seth and I have had a journey, I'll say. He and Aris have swapped places a lot in my head in this story, but then I decided that this was the storyline I wanted Seth to have, and I don't regret it. I really loved him the moment I was given his form, with a backstory I found really original, and a dynamic I was happy to explore, though I know he made most of your skins crawl. Seth, you were a rockstar.**

**11th: Cambric Vogel, 18, District 8 Male. Killed in the rebellion via burned up from mortar explosion. Created by dyloccupy. Cambric, in my very first initial arena planning since I was unsure if I was going to go down the Phoenix rebellion route or not, had been my victor choice... but here, as a medic - must I say, a very original backstory, truly - there's no way he'd survive, especially in a war setting. I cried again writing this scene, but I cried throughout all of this, and I really enjoyed him. Cambric, I will miss you.**

* * *

**_Tribute List (Boy - Girl)_**

District 1: **Cyril Barther **[_Submitted by thorne98_] / **Satin Spinel **[_Submitted by Mistycharming_]

District 2: **Aris Lindel **[_Submitted by grimbutnotalways_]

District 3: **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara **[_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 10: **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

District 11: **Vanya Vasiliev **[_Submitted by TheMayflyProject_]

District 12: **Mirek Bosco **[_Submitted by curiousclove_] / **Bloom Estrada **[_Submitted by LordShiro_]

...

_**Capitol Cast of Characters**_

_President of Panem: _**Bonnie Rodney**

_Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: _**Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies: _**Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games:_ ** Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: _**Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: _**Hale Cornerstone**

_Victor of the 77th Hunger Games: _**Hector Merviere**

_Victor of the 84th Hunger Games: _**Kevia Janelle**

_Head Gamemaker: _**Constantine Fallorne**

_Head Peacekeeper: _**Lazarus Pietro**

* * *

**Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #30: Battle of Gamemakers Square, and this was a chapter I was dreading more than life itself. So, yes, there are six dead tributes that you've read through, and that did just happen, and Rennie's Phoenix Rebellion just lost the battle, and yes... this was pretty much entirely action. I hope the music choice was good, even if a bit odd at times. We are from sixteen tributes down to ten... did you anticipate these being the ten we were left with? A lot of consideration went into this top ten, but it'll still get smaller from here. We are down to just eight chapters left, which is also _insane!_**

**This chapter is now the longest of the story haha, and I know I am updating three days earlier than expected but I was nervous for a chapter entirely filled with action. Also, to those who might be thinking, the Capitol character list will soon lose characters, don't you worry, and just you wait. I hope you all review, it would mean the upmost to me especially with what this chapter entailed, cause I always fret about my action sequences. The next chapter, #31: Hanging By A Thread I have scheduled no later than April 27th, and it will be from the Capitol cast perspective. I also have a new SYOT open for submissions on my profile, detailing the 1st Hunger Games: submissions are still open till somewhere between April 30th-May 3rd, and the form and statistics are on my profile. I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	31. Hanging By A Thread (Phoenix IX)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #31: Hanging By A Thread, the continuation of the Phoenix Rebellion from the Capitol characters points of view. Last chapter, #30: Battle of Gamemakers Square was said titular battle, where six tributes [Sage, Maren, Jason, Anahita, Seth, and Cambric] all bit the dust, the rebels lost said battle, and are on the retreat. It does not mean the rebellion is over, as Bonnie's forces lost heavily too, but that is where the chessboard is set currently. There are five chapters left, including this one, till we conclude the Phoenix Rebellion, and then three epilogue chapters. I am making the decision to type 31-35 before I start posting them little by little, so I can work on some Liberty stuff in the meantime now that summer is finally here. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #31: Hanging By A Thread.**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, understand that our shortcomings and failures were made by your design, so if you wish to get angry with us, get angry at yourself for designing our faults, instead of making us perfect._

**_Lance Viel: Victor of the 79th Hunger Games P.O.V _**

* * *

Everyone looks to be friend or foe now. There is no being able to tell the difference anymore, at least not to Lance. He's bleeding from some sort of wound that has lacerated his lower stomach, just by his left hip, but he is not sure if it is a bullet wound or someone stabbing him _or what. _He's been in the Capitol for twenty-two years, and generally knows his way around the glistening city, but it has all turned to hell in a handbasket, everything looking the same no matter where he turns, and he's starting to feel himself go woozy. In every direction it is just rising plumes of smoke and dust and ash and sulfur clouds, people stumbling to and fro while bleeding from every kind of orifice there is, a lot of people dropping dead and missing arms or legs, eyes, it doesn't matter, it's all just carnage.

Lance has no idea where he is anymore, where Valencia or Rennie are, let alone if they're even alive. He does know for certain that all the tributes who said they'd fight with them are dead, either by the hailing gunfire that seems to never end, or from explosives that are being lobbed at them every few seconds. They fought dirty, and Lance swears he saw a few mutts darting in and out of the streets at times, pets of Constantine's most likely, yet Rennie is fighting 'fair', and they were getting their asses kicked for it. If Rennie is dead, does it even matter anymore? Is the fight worth it?

"_Of course it is,_" he growls to himself, in his head. "_We should not give up._" Giving up would invalidate all the years of fighting, all the days stressing out on what Rennie is going to do. Lance recalls wanting to give up in the arena, after he loses his district partner in that horrific way, but he bears through it, most likely yelling the entire time as he does it, but he can only barely remember just a bit of it then. He did not expect the battle to go as it did, but the sudden disappearances of the District 9 and 10 forces hurt more than anticipated, but Rennie refuses to stand down or back down, as after all he has made the call, and people have shown up expecting him to lead, so he must lead. Lance keeps his concerns to himself, as he can tell Rennie is perturbed by the loss of fighting men, even if the ones still left were amped and pumped, ripped, ready, and roaring to go.

He can see it weighing on the ex-Avox's mind, about Kevia, Hale, and Hector not being there to fight alongside them, but Lance knows where they are, lips sealed and shut. Hale needs her kids back, Hector simply has to go with her, and it is all Kevia's fault, and she needs to do something, some sort of redemption before she dies. He wonders if he'll ever see them again, when Kevia jumps onto his bunkbed late at night two days ago, telling him her plan. He at first tries to stop her, to keep her there with him, as he needs her, but she shakes her head back and forth, making a tut noise in the back of her throat.

"_I have to go with them," she says, twirling a lock of blonde hair around her finger. Lance wonders when Valencia is going to dye her hair back to blonde, after running away from Bonnie's yoke, forcing her hair to remain dark. "Lance, you know I do."_

_"But-" he tries protesting, knowing it's futile. Everything with Kevia is futile, but he cannot help but be drawn to her, no matter what he does. No matter how hard he tries to push her away. He's tried before, yet she comes crawling back, or he comes crawling back, and on and on the cycle continues. _

_She shushes him, a grown woman shushing a grown man being quite the sight, but there's a sadness in her eyes. "Lance, you can't convince me to stay," and then, with a longer pause, "This might be the last time I'll ever see you again..."_

_Lance doesn't want to try and comprehend that fact, but it is the truth. With he and Valencia marching to their potential deaths in a fight with Bonnie's forces, and Kevia going on what might end up being a suicide mission, it is the truth. He does not cry, however, even though there is a lump forming in his throat. "Then it has been an honor, Kevia, mentoring with you." He had mentored her and the male tribute that year along with her, he's seen her grow up, he's seen her fall on her ass time and time again to leap back up with a smile on her face, unable to understand the meaning of the word quit, and time and time again he it is just as painful as the first occasion when he says goodbye as is the last. _

_He does not get a chance to say goodbye to Hale or Hector, and he knows he will never get a chance to ever again. _

_Kevia throws her arms around him in a hug, he squeezing her back, and the bed rocks a little bit, bouncing up against the wall, most likely waking up Valencia who is sleeping, dead to the world. When the two victors latch off of one another, Lance beating himself up now on how he could've held onto her tighter than he did, there's tears in Kevia's eyes. He's never seen her cry. "Take good care of her, for me," she says, and nods at the wall. "If you can't promise me anything else, Lance, please take care of her. She needs someone in this country she can look up to."  
_

_"Of course I will," he says. "Of course I will."_

Has he failed her? Lance stops to catch a breather, unable to see the sun as it is blotted out with all the smoke and haze filling the sky. Where- where is Valencia? Has she died? The last he can hear before another bombardment of mortar shells take out a skyscraper, which crashes to the ground in a flurry of dust, debris, and glass shards is her screaming at the top of her lungs to tell any surviving soldiers to retreat to camp. Yet Lance finds himself running in the opposite direction. He's never considered himself to be a coward, but he knows that if he goes back, it'll be a bloodbath should the Peacekeepers retreat. He is in the midst of fighting Lazarus when the surrender comes out, and that boy from Eight rushes by him to save someone else, the kid from Five if he can remember right. Lance loses his sword in the fight, and he's lost his gun too, and somehow Lazarus is walking away from the fight, he losing the Head Peacekeeper in the misty smog.

Lance pulls the knife out of the sheath he has clenched his hand, stuffing the sheath back in his pocket. He grimaces in pain, pressing his hand into his right side, just above his hip, and when he retracts his hand, it comes back smeared with crimson, he exhaling a shaky breath. _Blood. _When is the last time he's ever bled like this, from an injury in a fight? There is that lamb that chomps down on his leg when he steals it from Emmett's backyard drunkenly at around two in the morning, but this is different. He wheezes, applying his right hand back onto the wound, forcing pressure down, white lines flooding the corner of his vision as he collapses against the side of the one of the buildings, it nondescript and his head is swimming.

He's going the wrong way from base, but it doesn't even matter. He is not going to die out here, and if he is going to die in this accursed city, he is going to ensure that he is dying by Kevia's side. She's never been able to take guilt well, and if she's thinking he's potentially dead, he can only imagine the world of pain she's in.

The victor clenches down on his jaw, grinding his teeth together. He needs to keep moving, and he cannot give up. He'll never forgive himself if that victor trio dies, he'll never be able to forgive himself. There has been too much over the years he's never forgiven himself for. Lance takes another step, misses a brick on the ground, and trips over it, causing him to fall down to the ground. He growls in agony, as his side scrapes up against the dirt, his wound flaring up in intense pain. He can hear the heavy sound of boots clomping down on the ground behind him, the pace picking up in intensity and speed at a rapid rate.

He hisses to himself, patting up for the knife in his pocket. He wrenches it free, and just in time, for a Peacekeeper to start bearing down on him, the man in his white uniform that has transformed into a gnarly beast covered in blood, soot, dust, and ash. Lance stabs the Peacekeeper just between the ribcage, as that is where the lungs are. The man screams in pain, and when Lance rips the blade out, a torrent of blood splashes onto his arm. Another Peacekeeper must've been right behind the first one, tailing him, as when the first collapses, Lance sees another approaching, and this time, gun out and trained for survivors. He throws the blade straight at the soldier, it striking him straight in the visor, the force of the throw strong enough to break through the helmet, as the Peacekeeper falls dead.

Lance struggles to his feet, searching the dead Peacekeeper that had fallen onto him. There's another knife for him to steal, as well as the man's gun. He'll never get that sword back, but personally he is not upset about losing the sword. He can see, out of the corner of his eye, another Peacekeeper advancing from the left side, just turning from an alleyway, their gun out too, searching for victims. Bracing through the pain, Lance raises the blade high, roaring at the man. It startles the Peacekeeper with just another time, Lance rushing him. A bullet is fired, it haphazardly slinging across the brick walls, it barely grazing Lance's cheek. The victor hardly notices, as he reaches the Peacekeeper, thrusting the blade into the man's neck, wrenching it free with another strained roar, a spurt of blood rewarding him for his efforts as he slices through an aorta.

The carnage adds a fair splash of red to the grim streets, and he places his hand up to his face where the bullet had grazed him. The wound in his side still is bleeding, not profusely, but it is a steady stream, and he can find himself getting lax already, feeling woozy. He presses his left palm against his forehead, wiping away some beads of sweat, listening for the sounds of chaos and commotion behind him. Currently, the sound of silence, where maybe the Peacekeepers and Lazarus retreated, for their losses were nearly just as bad, despite even fighting dirty.

Lance has no idea what is on the horizon, but he can feel it in his blood, can feel it in the solidifying of his throat. There is no time for rest, no time to wait... Kevia needs his help, and will need his help if she wishes to survive the remainder of the rebellion. He'll need her too, he can sense it.

"_I'm coming for you, I swear,_" he tells himself, pocketing the new knife, holding onto the new gun, still applying pressure to the wound in his side.

He is hanging on by a thread, and he'll do whatever it takes to keep said thread from being cut.

* * *

**_Bonnie Rodney: President of Panem P.O.V_**

* * *

Life is precious; life is a gift basket wrapped in linen cloths and giggling while tiny hands and feet grasp at the air. Life is her own precious little gift, in the form of her daughter in her crib, as she looks down at her, and her daughter looks up at her. Bonnie waves her fingers back and forth at her, the baby in front of her smiling with no teeth, giggling and cooing, her heart filling up to the brim in warmth. She's had her baby dressed entirely in white, from the little flower crowning her already pale head, to the smooth dress made entirely of cotton, down to the little socks on her feet. A precious ball of sunshine, and she's all hers, all hers. Bonnie could've spent her afternoon sitting inside the main underground compound and watch the drone footage of the carnage, but she's instead washing the blood off of her body after seeing Jason Lacey and his idiot not-father fall down dead.

She has no idea whether or not to be upset at Amaris for not firing her own weapon and saving her immediately, or to be grateful that she _did _it and that the president hasn't ended up dead lying on top of that cobblestone terrace. Nonetheless, she gives the girl from Six a cold and brisk glance, telling her to stay put in the war room and keep an eye out on anything. If she's needed, the Peacekeeper in the room accompanying her will be notified, and she'll leave right away, but Bonnie knows she's completely safe; she's with kids, no one targets the children, ever. She's not a savage. She might have to end up doing some sort of unsavory things once in awhile, but that is for the good of the nation and for the good of her reign. Killing children does nothing for anybody except cause heartache.

Bonnie smiles, genuinely, in quite some time, as her daughter waggles a tiny little hand at her, little fingers just an inch or so long grasping at the air for her. She leans forward some, gently brushing a finger up against her daughter's nose. "You'd be so proud of Mommy today, sweetheart," she tells her, in the sweetest voice she can muster, one so sweet that she almost gags on the taste of it against her tongue and on her throat. "Mommy beat Daddy in a game today," she tells her. It drives Bonnie up a wall, and almost with glee though, at the same time, that the baby she has came from that hideous skag with red hair than of her own husband, who couldn't rub one out in time for it to matter. And yet that hideous skag has no idea that this child in front of her even belongs to him. Would he even care? "Her army beat his, and will destroy him," she coos her daughter on the nose once more, she giggling out in the little sanctuary she's had built for her baby. "Can you believe it? Your dad wishes to destroy all of this, and doing so, destroy you," the president shakes her head back and forth in disbelief, a lump forming in her throat. The madness of it all. "Can you believe that?" A lightbulb pops off in her head. "What do you think I should do, sweetheart?" she asks, looking at her daughter while tilting her head to the side. "Should I have him brought to me in chains, begging for forgiveness? Do you know that he can't even _talk? _What kind of human being can't even talk?"

"You do realize she can't speak back to you, right? Cause she's like... a baby?" a feminine voice that Bonnie does not normally hear in her head, asks, just coming from over her shoulder.

Bonnie locks her jaw, looking away from her daughter towards the pest - piece of trash, rather - that dares speak to her in such a manner. Instead of her angelic baby dressed just like one, Bonnie ends up looking over at Arianne and Elias Merviere, Hale Cornerstone and Arizona Merviere's kids. She's a gorgeous little girl, as she is the one to speak at Bonnie, with an eyebrow raised in perfect like-mother, like-daughter fashion, with the same dark colored hair in a long swoop down her back. She and her younger brother are sitting at a table in the center of the room, a gross little vomit green colored table, but Bonnie simply has the room thrown together in haste. Elias is holding onto some crayons, coloring in some sort of drawing that Bonnie cannot quite see. Will her daughter, when she's grown, show her pictures she's colored all by herself?

The president closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. She is a woman in her mid-forties with plenty of experience at being a figurehead, dealing with people, and all sorts of other things against an eight-year-old girl with no parents, in a strange environment, looking out for her piss head brother; Bonnie prefers Arianne far more than Elias, even if she does have a mouth on her and all. Arianne has been the one to question the nature of her reality a lot more, asking questions constantly to the other Peacekeepers in the room, but Bonnie keeps said lid as closed as she can without suffocating them.

"I beg your pardon?" The little girl doesn't get the privilege of being called 'sweetheart'. As far as Bonnie is concerned, the girl is a hell spawn, born out of traitor blood. Traitors breed traitors, is how the saying goes after all.

The room is glass cage, with walls that are entirely windows on all sides, a level lower than the base. She has her baby stay in the room, but the Merviere kids live two floors up in the back wing of the mansion above ground, generally under heavy guard, but Bonnie has had to pull them back due to the battle, needing every hand to go out and fight that she can spare, keeping the kids with her own kid, but making sure they never interact. To ensure no one contaminates the other, as Arianne and Elias do not deserve being touched by the Capitol's blessing, and she does not want her daughter to be contaminated either with the District rebel taint that blooms in their drinking water. How else would the districts become so incendiary unless it is in everything they consume?

"She's two months old," Arianne says, so commonly, as if it is such common knowledge, before tossing her hair over her shoulder, turning back to her brother. "And everyone knows babies can't talk," Elias looks up at his sister, a frown on his face, his hair smearing down onto the drawing he's hunched over. The kid's brow is furrowed deeply, with frown lines as if he's aged a hundred years since then, flashing his sister a worried look, but Arianne ignores it, simply tapping him on his arm and still keeping her back turned to the president. Doesn't ever child know to face their elders if they're speaking to them? "You're just wasting your time, Ms. Rodney."

Bonnie has to hand it to the child on three things: firstly being she isn't referred to by her first name or called 'Madam President', secondly that's she astute enough to use Ms., but Bonnie hasn't been wearing her wedding ring, and thirdly, the blatant disrespect. Perhaps it is something in the water from where she comes from. The president smooths out the rough crinkles of her dress. "I am spending some time with my daughter. I might have a country to run, but it is does not hurt to spend time with my child," and then, as an afterthought, "And to make sure you're okay."

"I know you don't care about us, Ms. Rodney," Arianne says, working on the puzzle in front of her. It is a small one, only about fifty to hundred pieces, Bonnie isn't quite so sure for she didn't count how many had been on the box, but that isn't what bothers her. "Besides, aren't you like busy with a war?"

A record scratches off somewhere in the distance, a ghastly echo in Bonnie's head. _Excuse me? _"Busy with a war?"

"You don't have to lie to me," and then Arianne does turn around, resting an arm on the back of her chair, eyes flashing a dangerous steel. _Oh, it is game on, little girl. _"You don't like my brother and I because you don't like my mommy and daddy and uncle, but that's okay; I know adults make stupid mistakes and decisions all the time," Bonnie goes to say something, but again, like-mother, like-daughter, she overrides her, the impatient little _brat. _"One of your men told me, and he seemed really happy to tell me," she looks at her brother, gripping his wrist, he suddenly becoming really occupied in the stupid vomit colored table. "He made Elias cry, but I told him I'd tell you what he said and it made him all scared," and then, with the defiance of a thousand generations in her, something that makes Bonnie's heart beat in her chest like a snare drum, Arianne lifts her head up at her. "Will you throw him in front of a train like how you killed my dad?"

Bonnie could've been knocked over with a feather, she nearly falling to the ground herself with that comment.

"Excuse me, Arianne?" the woman scoffs, pulling on one of her blonde curls. "I- I _didn't_-"

"Yes you did," Arianne says, and she doesn't take her stare off of the president. "Miss Kevia was so shocked by what you did that she raised her hands to cover her mouth, so I saw," she juts her head at Elias. "And he saw it too. We were both there, too, Ms. Rodney... you told those men to do it to him."

Bonnie marches straight up to the little girl, and then, rashly, knocked the entire puzzle off of the table. It had been of a hummingbird or something really pretty, pieces clattering onto the tile floor, Elias jumping in shock, and Bonnie snatches away his drawing too, ripping it to shreds. Arianne, however, sits unflinching, crossing her arms, gaze bearing into the president like she has x-ray vision, and Bonnie cannot read whether or not it is a glare, or something even worse than that. The president points a finger at her, voice sounding like too much butter scrapped over bread, cracking on wedges of thin ice. "You listen here, you little _bitch,_" she doesn't care if she just swore at a child, it isn't really a child in the first place. "Your parents broke the law and abandoned you to this fate of working on puzzles, while I have to _babysit!_"

"It must be so hard for you," Arianne bites back.

All the woman can see is red in her ledger, a blinding coat, the same color as when she finds out Calhoun had been planning on ending the Hunger Games with her being kept out of the loop. All that she has worked for, all the sacrifices she has made for her own child in the room currently listening to this diatribe. Arianne hears it from someone else, clearly, so she'll have that person hanged, easy enough. No one will think twice of crossing her when they see their limp body swinging in the breeze, pale boots just barely scuffing into the dirt.

"I am warning you, young lady-"

"Warning me with what?" the girl challenges back at her. "You aren't my mother," and she pushes herself away from the table, chair scooting back harshly on the tile. "My mother won those Games of yours, and she _lived. _You wouldn't survive what she went through, and you're just a fake mommy," Arianne's downturned frown morphs into a smirk, and although Bonnie has several feet on the child, it is almost as if Arianne Merviere is taking all of the space in the room, growing to the height of galaxies. "You're just another woman like those my mommy knows on the verge of a collapse."

Bonnie slaps the girl across the face, almost desperate enough to turn said hand into a fist to knock the girl's lights out. Arianne hits the tile rather hard, having fallen back into the chair. Elias yelps out in fright, rushing over to his sister, but Bonnie is not done yet. She stalks towards the two children, pushing Elias aside, but it doesn't take much to knock him away. Arianne coughs out in pain, her tiny little body vanishing into the floor, but Bonnie finds her easily enough, grabbing her and hoisting her to her feet. The president slams the little girl into the wall, against the glass walls, and she's sure she might've given the girl a concussion, but it doesn't matter; she's not allowed to be disrespected this way. Adults who think they're foolish and will survive the consequences they bred meet their ends with silver bullets marked in their colors, but children? Bonnie will recant about what insane people will do for hurting kids.

The person she's smashing into the wall is no child.

Just another statistic.

Arianne is bleeding from her lip, Bonnie tightening her grip at the stomach, bunching up the fabric in her hand. "How dare you speak to me that way!" Bonnie roars. She can see, just barely out of the corner of her eye, the Peacekeeper assigned to her flinch, but she scoffs in her head; she's surrounded by weak-ass men with stupid agendas. "I am your _God, _you stupid little girl! How dare you!" the child coughs out in pain, but Bonnie cannot hear it over the roar of blood in her ears. "You know why I don't like your family? Huh?" Bonnie presses her right hand directly underneath the girl's chin, forcing her to look directly into the venomous glare. "Your mother is a weak woman! Your father was a rulebreaker and a coward! You _dare _raise your voice to me like that or disrespect me in that manner and I'll separate your head from the rest of your body!" Bonnie presses Arianne harder into the wall, but she can hear something else rising, not just Elias's scream, but a different wail, a wail that has no order to it. "DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU LITTLE BITCH!"

Her daughter's cries back in her crib reach a fever pitch, the sound of her flesh and blood in some form of pain being like ice cold water has been doused on top of her head, Bonnie breaking through the stupor of pure vitriol and rage coursing through her veins. She gets a good glimpse at the look of terror in Arianne's eyes, and the way her lip is split open, and Elias's pained cries hit her ears, and Bonnie lets go of Arianne, the little girl collapsing onto the ground and not moving, whimpering to herself too. Elias runs over to his sister, simply kneeling by her, not saying anything. Bonnie stumbles back away from the window, her entire body shaking. She wants to go comfort her daughter, she needs to go comfort her daughter, but something keeps her from moving over towards her.

What... what did she just do? What just overtook her? She is unsure whether or not to be more scared of the fact of what she's just done, or that Bonnie has no idea on what just overcame her.

Bonnie looks at the Merviere children, who are looking back at her, and something strikes her heart, the way both kids look at her in fright, pure fear, the fear of a tribute, or like Hale when cornered into the backwall of her prison cell with Lazarus's baton raised high above his head. It is the same look she saw in Lewlyn's eyes before she slit the woman's throat open and sprayed blood all over the far bathroom wall, or Calhoun's terror in his knit together eyebrows before she shoots him straight through the heart.

Her own terror, the same fear at what it would mean for her to loose the empire she has built. None of it can come crashing down; her sanity depends on the shore remaining dry and structured perfectly well.

There are tears welling up in her eyes, and she can feel one streak down her cheek briefly, dropping onto the floor, she shaking her head back and forth, and when she does speak, her voice is trembling. "I'm sorry," she whispers, but Bonnie isn't so sure anyone can actually hear her, as she's backing up more and more, away from the Merviere siblings, and away from her own daughter, whose cries are starting to spill onto repeat. She cannot get near her own child, as Bonnie has no idea what she'll do to make the sound stop. A warm kiss on the cheek. Smother her with a pillow. "I am so sorry..." her back hits the door to exit the nursery, a place of happiness overshadowed in pain, the wailing of children, and the sorrows of a damned nation.

Bonnie flees for her life out of that room.

* * *

**_Lazarus Pietro: Head Peacekeeper P.O.V_**

* * *

Every man, after a slaughter, needs time to unwind. However, for Lazarus Pietro, there is no time to unwind, as he is to be moving on from slaughter to slaughter. It is not a war out there, the type of fight that just occurred, it is no war or a battle, but a slaughter, where the angels of heaven combat the demons from hell. It has been a long time since he's been in the districts, staying in the Capitol ever since his recruitment straight out of the reaping age, and he forgets just how hideous the outer district citizens look like up close, especially with their faces twisted in those grotesque expressions, screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs. Passionate, yet stupid, is what Lazarus thinks of, when seeing them fight and wave their guns around all haphazardly.

He's lost a lot of comrades, if he'll even look at them in that manner. He didn't know most of them, just silent figures in masks holding onto the ends of assault rifles and RPGs, maybe driving the occasional truck, and he's shouting out orders behind a mask of his own. Lazarus does not need to know their names, for their fallen soldiers, nameless peons to shoot down the rising tide before it eventually overwhelms and drowns them all. A vermillion sea that he is bathing in, splashing in with the other nameless comrades of him following his orders into the unknown, into the evil depths. He is not so sure what he'd do if none of the people in his army were to listen to him. Would he kill them all then and there? Would he demand they fight alongside him, to help Bonnie ensure the safety of their great nation?

Or would Lazarus run into the slaughter all by his lonesome, because why would he need any of them to help?

There are not enough forces to follow Rennie and Valencia and anyone else that has survived, simply not enough, as if their losses are extensive, in which he's ensured that outcome, the Peacekeepers are a straggling force too. Lazarus steps away from his brawl with Lance, a knife wound into his upper arm, it stinging a bit, but he's learned long ago to forget the pain. The sky is on fire, and there's the occasional sound of bullets ripping through the smoke covered streets, ash and dust falling lightly onto his shoulder pads, a coating of warfare and grime, blood streaking down his face, lip busted open, the covering on his shin ripped and gashed, tandems of fabric floating in the breeze like a chewed up bit of carrot. Lazarus wipes at his forehead with the back side of his gloved palm, exhaling a shaky breath.

Over to his left, kicking someone over, but he is not sure if the person is dead or alive, is Aris, looking worse for wear as well, but seemingly in much better spirits, his shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths, excitement practically buzzing off of him, a fly flapping their wings belatedly into a microphone. The person must be dead, but it doesn't stop the boy from District 2 to start punching at the corpse's face, knuckles coated in a copper slime, but Lazarus doesn't say anything. Why sour the mood? Let the kid live a little, he still could die some other time in the war, which is certainly not over yet. There are a few other stragglers, some rebel folk brought to their knees and cuffed, restrained in some manner, but by the few Peacekeepers that look his way, Lazarus shakes his head in dissent.

Why keep prisoners? Bonnie will have no need for them. He has no need for them. A man who has turned into a traitor is out of uses. They deserve to die, and have that be the end of their story, the end of their impact on the world, if there had been any impact on them to begin with.

Another five corpses join the littered graveyard on Gamemakers Square. Lazarus loves the stench of death, legitimately, as he inhales the scent deeply. Warfare has always had some sort of mechanical taste to it, in the back of his throat, the grind of iron and the cog and the wheel and the migrant worker, and even the taste of a blade between his teeth, slicing up tendons and digging out individual teeth one by one. A castle made of his own flesh, Lazarus can even picture it now. The Capitol has always been special, but perhaps it could take its dosage of morbidity even further.

"We need to get back to Bonnie," he tells Aris, looking over at the kid who has moved onto a different corpse, stealing some sort of dog tag around their neck. The body is grisly and unrecognizable, and is not a man, like Lazarus expects, but a girl. What might have looked like ginger hair to him, too, and her face is gone, shot completely with bullet holes. "Aris, what are you doing?"

"Do you not recognize her?" the tribute asks him. No matter what this Aris Lindel kid might do, and the same goes for Amaris O'Hara back with the president, no matter how loyal they might prove to be, they're just tributes. Bonnie and Constantine will still have them kill the other to see who'd be left standing, as there is a 101st Hunger Games to still initiate in all this time. Lazarus shakes his head, he doesn't recognize her; why does the kid expect he will? "It's Sage Dagoba," Aris says, and there's a sneer on his face, but one that makes the Head Peacekeeper roll his eyes. Sometimes too much can really be _too much. _"She is," and then he pauses, biting down on his tongue, "_Was_," Aris corrects with a smirk, "The tribute from Seven; she threw an axe at Constantine I'm told. And here she is, dead."

Her body falls back onto the ground, Aris holding her dog tags in his clenched hand. "And why take the dog tags? Do they mean anything to you?"

"Spoils of war, right?" Aris asks, grinning slightly.

_Oh, there is so much for you to learn. _"It is not a spoils of war, kid," Lazarus holsters his pistol, grimacing again at the pain from the slice down his forearm. "She could've carved you up in an arena if you weren't careful," that elicits a snort from the District 2 Career, "And besides, a war means more than one battle."

"And there will be, right? I mean, we clearly are the ones who won cause they retreated and-"

"They're not defeated," Lazarus cuts in, eyes darting to match Aris's dark blue ones, filled to the brim with rage at being interrupted. "Valencia escaped, as she officially called the surrender. We've been seeing bodies for the past thirty minutes and no one has come across Rennie's, which means their mastermind still is out there somewhere," he gestures to the surrounding parts of the city that are not destroyed yet; the sun is starting to slowly fall away from its zenith in the sky, it being around three in the afternoon or so, if his watch is to be believed. "If the mastermind still lives, so does the rebellion."

It is masterful, he must admit, although Lazarus would never say it out loud, at how Rennie started everything. An avox speaking out after no longer being afraid of the punishment that would strike him down, but of course, everything Rennie Davis says is a lie on that video, and if there had been any truth to the statements, they've been twisted beyond belief at this point. But, doing his actions in such a way that forces him to get caught? And in being caught it blinds everyone to all else that moves? Lazarus has to call a spade a spade, and it is genius, pure genius. He'll make sure to give the freedom fighter his regards before putting a bullet in his brain. It'll happen soon enough, as there's only so much square footage of the city left to uncover, only so many buildings one can knock down or destroy, and it has been a lot in the last couple of days.

Aris scoffs at the Head Peacekeeper's last statement, starting to trudge in direction of the mansion. Lazarus takes another deep breath, pressing his fingers into the wound, and when removing the pressure, looking at the cardinal splatters that cover his fingertips, rubbing over his fingerprints. He takes another look at the dead girl from Seven, Sage, before shaking his head and turning away. It is a shame, what happened to the tributes, for he can tell that there were at least six of them that went over to Rennie and the Phoenix's side, by practical guessing from Amaris's part. He has no idea if the other five are dead, given the composition of who left and changed sides, that most of them wouldn't be fighters on the frontlines. It doesn't matter now, as they listened to the words of a charlatan and said charlatan led them to their deaths, to their pitiful, wonderful deaths.

Lazarus makes an all call into his earpiece, for all remaining Peacekeepers to head back to their old stations, for the rebellion has been snuffed out currently, and would be incapable of a counter attack soon. He surveys the destroyed section of the Capitol, standing in the dead center of the city next to the broken statue of Constantine Fallorne, shuddering slightly. Even in inanimate object form, she stills finds a way to creep him out, with that smile of hers, and those gentle hands into his shoulder blades, rubbing out knots from stress, and he having to resist the urge to punch her in the face. Her husband, the one who dies to mysterious circumstances - "_Mysterious my ass,_" _commentates Pollux once, over a cup of coffee - _Lazarus remembers distinctly, Bonnie doing some digging without Calhoun's nod of approval.

Rebel sympathizer, her husband. Maybe Constantine knew, maybe she didn't know. He enjoyed that waterboarding session with her back then, all those days and weeks ago. She squealed like a gutted little pig, and the glint in his eyes shone brighter, watching her tiny form flail underneath the burly grip of his associates, the gift of life drowning her under the rag. It has always bothered him, that a woman nearly tortured by her own country, has become so devoted to said country. He is not going to question her loyalty any further, for she's done so much more in keeping it from imploding. He'll ask her, one day, when the madness settles over.

Getting back to base will be easy, Lazarus supposes, as it is just a simple walk with his gun trained on anyone thinking they could become a hero later on with just a single lucky shot. It is what comes after that has him worried, when the katana will cut cleanly through the head of the viper, or it can miss and he'll have only sliced off the tail. Bonnie's last order before he leaves the building, one that sends chills down his spine. It is why he left one of them alive, one of the rebels he bumps into, and he doesn't harm him, just a solid pat on the back, a terrified kid who could be a few years younger than Aris, truthfully.

"_After the battle, in which we win," Lazarus tells Amaris, before their departure, the girl looking like has one and a million protests on her tongue just begging to spill them, "Aris and I and the rest will come back to catch our breath, collect our bearings. We'll lose a considerable amount of soldiers, and so will they, but all of this will be for naught if we can't find out where they are."_

_"So you can snuff them out like rats," Amaris says immediately, following him, eyes glistening with recognition. "A false sense of security." _

_"And you still won't be going with us."_

_"Why not? You need me! I can help!" the girl from Six argues back._

_Lazarus simply silences her with a raised hand. Someone who still doesn't know their place, someone who thinks they can still speak out of turn with the tone that they have, after making the mistakes that they've made... it is getting old to him. "The only help you'll be able to give Bonnie, soon, young lady, is you just staying out of our way."_

He does not remember if he gives Amaris time to recover from that, simply nodding his head and departing out into the gloom.

Lazarus grins to himself, ignoring the stinging of the wind on the underside of his arm. He'll get that patched up eventually, he figures, sometimes, and maybe to add insult to injury, he'll make Aris do it, for that kid is starting to no longer rest on his laurels, laurels he hasn't earned.

Oh, how the rebellion and those that survived must think they're safe.

He wishes he could live with that kind of ignorance.

* * *

**_Hector Merviere: Victor of the 77th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

His head is killing him, like he's had too much vodka. Because he _has had _too much vodka. Hector sits up, a massive pressure building just on the inside of his corneas, where he can feel a splitting headache ripping brain matter free. The victor is immediately blinded when he sits up, crying out in pain, covering his eyes with his arm, blotting out the sunshine falling through the window, curtains torn aside. A bottle of vodka lies empty next to him, he kicking it with his feet as he groans and rolls over, the bottle bumping into Kevia, who is lying sound asleep next to him. Her arms are underneath her, she holding lazily onto a bottle of wine that must've not been entirely finished off, as its contents are spilling onto the carpeted floor, a blood red stain spilling out and tainting the rug.

What- what time is it? Hector searches the room for his bearings, trying to fleetingly remember what happened. It had been them, he, Kevia, and Hale sitting around twiddling their own thumbs back and forth, overcome by boredom and hunger, when Hale breaks into the pantry to see if any of their bread had been okay to eat and not past its expiration date. Kevia opens the fridge, there being several full contents of alcohol, the sun having sunk beneath the sky at that point, and the patrols have ceased, and their guard drops. Hector cannot recall much more than that, but by seeing the bottles lie around them, he has a damn good idea what did end up happening. But that can only mean one thing...

He sits up in a panic, knocking the sheets off of him and onto Hale, who is lying below him on the floor, he on another couch, the sheets hitting her in the face, she squirming awake with a groan. Hector looks down at his body and shrieks, he being entirely in his underwear and nothing else. Oh _lord, did he get naked for the others? _He thought he had given up alcohol entirely, after Arizona drives him to drink the first time, but this is different. He races to the banister, to look down onto the first floor of Hale's apartment, they being camped out on the second floor, and the time stares back at him like a death sentence.** _3:30 PM. _**

"FUCK!" he shouts out, kicking at the bannister. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck!_"

That gets Hale, but Kevia as well, to open their eyes. Kevia rubs at the corners of them, stretching her arms out. "What's got you in a sour mood, Hector? You never talk like that anymore-"

"Hector, what is it?" Hale follows up too, and she's completely dressed, and it looks like the victor from One is as well, Hector being the only one to take his clothes off.

He finds them in a minute, hung over the bannister, he throwing himself into the pants he had thrown off last night. "We slept in! It's the afternoon now! The fight probably happened and we're behind and _fuck!_" he screams again, falling over himself trying to get into his pants.

"Wait, what?" Hale asks in alarm, sitting straight up, she locking eyes with Kevia worriedly, the two of them throwing their covers on. There's another noise in the air that Hector is unable to fully focus on, over the din of the headache booming inside his skull, a gong beat over and over again. He can tell that Hale hears it however, wincing harshly, rubbing the side of her face.

"We're behind, guys," Hector says. "We- we need to go!"

He reaches over for his shirt, scrambling to get it on, and then the belt. Finding socks for his shoes will be a disaster, and he knows Arizona never stocked up on his own room, so he'll go without socks, that's not a problem. Kevia and Hale look at him with a frown, passing glances with each other every little bit as Hector scrambles around the floor. This is not the game plan, the game plan has been deviated from, while sweet Elias and Arianne will suffer from their mistakes instead. He pauses, however, noticing something else on the wind. The noise, that noise, breaking through his headache. He can tell that Hale hears it too, over the sound of his panicked breathing, or Kevia's more shallow inhales.

A trill, a little steady trill with an added beep at the end of it before the cycle restarts. It is coming from downstairs, and it is _loud. _

He swears under his breath.

"Is- is that your alarm?" he asks, looking at Hale worriedly.

"Alarm?" Kevia looks between the two of them with a frown, rubbing a blonde curl out of the way. She holds onto the knife at her waist, having it clipped it back into place shortly after getting to her feet.

"House alarm," Hale says, looking back at her. "And that means someone's set it off."

"It'll alert everyone to our position if someone notices it..." Hector's face pales, he rubbing a hand over his mouth, dragging to a harsh point at his chin, tugging on some of the hairs there. "And we have no idea how long it's been on..." he looks at the staircase down to the lower floors. If it has been just for a few minutes, perhaps nothing too detrimental. Anything longer or worse though? He has no idea what kind of consequences that could bring. Looking back at Kevia and Hale, a feeling of realization sinks into his veins. It is Hale's children they're going after, trying to free, and Kevia redeeming herself for the mistake she's made... and he's simply along for the ride. Whatever set off the alarm could still be in the vicinity, or worse, in the house still. The window that had the sunlight streaming through it is open, for he can smell the outside air, it stinking of sulfur and gunpowder, and the sky isn't as bright as it seemed to be once. He recalled looking outside of it last night, and the wad of mattresses piled up on the side of the building from another neighbor, probably an abandoned household.

He knows what he has to do, Hector settling his shoulders down, hands trembling.

Hector Merviere sends his sister-in-law tumbling out of the second story window, and Kevia right after that, too stuck in the stupor of shock to move.

Hale rolls off of the mattress onto the street, he then tossing her gun to her from the second story window, Kevia going to pick her own weapon off of her that had fallen onto the ground. Luckily, _luckily, _neither one of them broke their skulls on the fall, his trajectory just right.

"Hector!" the victor from Two shouts at him, and he has to flinch away from the loud noise. She's genuinely screaming at him this time, in her hungover state. "What- what are you doing?"

"You and Kevia need to go!" he yells back at her from down below. "We don't know how long your house alarm has been going off for, and that means every Peacekeeper in a two mile radius could be headed here right now. You- you've got your kids to save! I'm gonna shut the alarm off and catch up to you!" For the love of everything that is good and holy in the world of Panem, for the very little of it that does exist, he needs, he _needs _her to listen to him. Just this once, trust Hector Merviere, than he trusting Hale Cornerstone. "Go, guys! GO!"

"Hector, you are not-" Kevia tries butting in, but Hector slams the window shut, effectively silencing out their shouts. He knows that Hale had been the house key down on a table on the first floor, somewhere in the kitchen, and it would not be in her pocket. Neither one of them have another way to get back in the house, and he knows Hale is too timid to stand there and simply wait for him to follow suit, when he goes to take a jump out of that second story window as well. Hector steps away from the window, running a hand through his hair, trembling like a leaf blowing in the wind.

If Arizona were to see him now? Hector would burst into tears, at the thought of what his brother would say. Yes, he's won the Games, but everything else since then has been a downhill slide, the strength sapped out of him like a hummingbird drinking nectar from a flower, and his leaves would wither away, wilted under the harsh rays of the sun, or Lazarus's beatings, or Bonnie's sips of wine... it doesn't matter any longer, as he's doing this one thing, cause there's no one else to step up to the plate. He's the last person holding onto the thread that will be cut, a puppet fallen away on lax strings.

He races down the steps to the first floor two at a time, almost slipping once on the back of his pants, steadying himself on the banister. The alarm system, which Hale points out late into their drunken evening, sits near the front door, some sort of white console, but Hector simply smashes his fist into it, silencing the alarm. It's dog bark silences immediately, braying off in a whimpering mewl, Hector's heart racing in his chest. It's over, the noise, and he can go up to the second floor, join Kevia and Hale and go get her kids and-

Hector's eyes fall on the two front windows next to the door, and subsequently him, noticing how whenever he shifts his body weight, there's a crunching sound underneath his feet. The victor looks down, a croak bubbling in his throat as he shifts around in a pool of glass shards. His gaze rises to the window, and the gigantic gaping hole that is created in the center of the one closest to him, the hole large enough for a person to fit through. He steps away from the alarm as if it is radioactive, a hand going to his waist, he cursing to himself.

He left his gun up on the couch he had fallen asleep on, since he is not about to sleep with a loaded weapon on his body and have it go off in the middle of the night. The person that broke in, which would be how the alarm is set off, for he knows vividly that no one in his party had just decided to bust into _and _through something in that manner, especially not himself, as he isn't that wasted, could still be in the apartment somewhere. It is a four floor building, for his brother has always liked shiny things, sure, and that means if someone is still in the building with him, they- they could be...

The victor makes a dash back up the steps, slipping on one of them hitting his head at the very top, groaning in pain. He can see his gun, its black and silent form, resting on one of the pillows stacked up against the other side of it. There might not even be anyone in the house, for all he knows, for if there were, they could've just murdered he and Kevia and Hale at any time they wanted to while they're passed out, but he recalls passing out at around four or so in the morning, and there hadn't been any disturbances then either. Hector makes another run for the gun when he's all of a sudden brought onto his back, a fiery pain rippling through his body, it almost as sudden as the scream that tears out of his throat. A pain slashes through the back of his heels, it bringing the victor down to the count.

As his body lands against the floor, he lying directly below a vent, there's a slight popping noise rising, unlike the blare of the alarm. He can see, very faintly, a green sort of smoke or inhalant blow through several of the vents on the second story, the gun just out of reach. Hector's eyes widen, trying to close his jaw shut, but a hand from above clamps down on his nose, forcing him to open his mouth, and some of the air goes shooting down his throat, he gagging on it, immediately feeling a burning sensation in his throat. He looks up, trying to strain himself to see who it is, unable to make his way to his feet as his entire body has fallen limp, feet unresponsive from the sliced tendons in his heels.

He is staring straight into the cold eyes of Head Gamemaker Constantine Fallorne, a gasmask on the woman's face, tuffs of her gray hair with the dyed pink tips springing forth, as Hector croaks out another bubble of pain, his lungs feeling like they're on fire, and his entire body is convulsing with pain. What- what did he just inhale? What is she doing to him? Constantine reaches down to touch his face, her left hand stroking his face just above his mouth and at his cheek, her right hand dropping the kitchen knife she used to slice Hector's ankles open, it stained crimson with his blood, another shock rippling through him.

She leans into his personal space, Hector able to hear her heavy breathing through the gasmask. "Do you smell the fear, Hector?" she asks him. All he can do is look at her, choking on his own spit, trying to catch his breath, the breath that will never come. "It smells like strawberries to me, if you should know," and Constantine tilts her head to the side. "Your fear is rotten, and it stinks..." her hand continues to pet down the side of his face, and Hector can feel himself crying, crying at this stupid woman who has stolen so much from him without even realizing what she's done. "Rennie and Bonnie's forces fought this morning, in Gamemakers Square. Rennie and the rebels were decimated," he can hear the glee in the Head Gamemaker's voice as she speaks, and there's a smile on her face.

"F- _go to hell, you bitch!_" Hector just barely manages to shout at her, his vocal cords straining against the toxin wreaking havoc in his body.

Constantine frowns, shaking her head back and forth. "Your world is burning away, Mr. Merviere. I hope you can smell it, the hope decaying away, like embers," she tilts her head to the other side now, removing her hand off of his face. He makes another pained gasp, the small of his back grinding into the tiled floor. "Don't fight it. I- I know it hurts, I wanted this to be painful," he's unsure if that is a tear or not that then slides down her face. "I wanted to relish in your suffering, since you'd be the easiest one to get my hands on, and you've probably been the one who has suffered enough..." and she shrugs. "Did you really think I was going to let you come and go as you please? I know of you and Hale and Kevia's little mission, to go free her kids..." she frowns at this, and Hector gasps in agony, another white flare blinding his vision momentarily. "God has kicked you out of heaven, yet you still think that _I, _the gatekeeper, am just going to let you back in?" Constantine's hands are like claws, digging into his cheek and shoulders. "No, darling, I do not think so. Just... just lie back, and smell the fumes," Constantine lifts her head back, and Hector sees madness take a personified form on the woman's face. "Smell the fumes of your world burn away to welcome the rise of my own..."

Another tear falls down Hector's face, and another, and another, and another, and he is incapable of making any more sobbing sounds, and he's stopped choking, gasping for air. He can only hope Hale and Kevia got the hint and have fled, especially with Constantine hot on their tails.

Constantine soothes him by running a hand through his long locks of untamed hair, kissing him on the ear, and then, as he feels his lungs being sliced open by glass, puncturing holes into his kidneys and lining his stomach with sulfuric acid, the Head Gamemaker reaches over to Hector's throat, closing her hand around his flesh, Hector kicking his legs out in terror, it being harder and harder for him to keep his eyes open, to try and focus on his brother's voice in the back of his mind, for he's a fighter, and fighters never quit!

Fighters... never... quit...

Somewhere down the line, Hector Merviere gives up the good fight, and Constantine silences him forever.

* * *

**_Tribute List (Boy - Girl)_**

District 1: **Cyril Barther **[_Submitted by thorne98_] / **Satin Spinel **[_Submitted by Mistycharming_]

District 2: **Aris Lindel **[_Submitted by grimbutnotalways_]

District 3: **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara **[_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 10: **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

District 11: **Vanya Vasiliev **[_Submitted by TheMayflyProject_]

District 12: **Mirek Bosco **[_Submitted by curiousclove_] / **Bloom Estrada **[_Submitted by LordShiro_]

...

_**Capitol Cast of Characters**_

_President of Panem: _**Bonnie Rodney**

_Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: _**Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies: _**Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games:_ ** Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: _**Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: _**Hale Cornerstone**

_Victor of the 84th Hunger Games: _**Kevia Janelle**

_Head Gamemaker: _**Constantine Fallorne**

_Head Peacekeeper: _**Lazarus Pietro**

* * *

**That, ladies and gentlemen, was Chapter #31: Hanging By A Thread, the continuation of the Phoenix rebellion from the Capitol character cast, aftermath from the Battle of Gamemakers Square. As you can see, this now officially commences the first death of a Capitol character for this story, and I am in no way finished yet. On the other side of things, Lance is now involved in the freeing of Hale's children proxy saving Kevia from a grim fate, Bonnie's lost it a bit more than usual for violence against an eight-year-old, Lazarus has hidden away plans, and Hector has died... the poor Merviere brother duo is completely gone. I won't be fully giving eulogies to my Capitol characters as their all OCs of mine who knew what they were signing up for, after all. I loved Hector, and he's still the owner of my favorite line of dialogue I've ever written - no need to re-reference it - but I knew where his journey would end up. Always here, dead.**

**Chapter #32: Do or Die will be coming out next, another tribute POV chapter, where we're still focused on Day 3 of the rebellion, with ten tributes left alive, seeing POVs from five of them that we haven't caught up to in awhile from their perspective. Beyond that, I will be working on intro perspectives for Liberty as we're out of the prologue stage in that story and onto the cast, which I am already falling in love with. To those who submitted, I wish to say thank you, and for those of you reading this, please go give that new story some love; I'd greatly appreciate it. I am now officially on summer vacation, no real schooling to do, so I have all the time in the world to write. I'd greatly appreciate reviews and telling me what you all thought, and for whatever else you wish to talk about. I will see you all again with Chapter #32: Do or Die! I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	32. Do or Die (Phoenix X)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #32: Do Or Die, another title that thorne98 had helpfully supplied me when chapter title brainstorming. We are once again in another fully tribute led POV chapter, with just six chapters left till this story is over, which I find ****_insane_****. Last chapter, #31, was a Capitol POV, aftermath of the brutal battle in Gamemakers Square, where our first of the eleven Capitol characters, Hector Merviere, bit the bullet and has died, which was painful. I'll say it upfront right now that this chapter is the last one fully of tribute POV's, and the chapters later on 33-38, will have a mix [33, 35, 36 notwithstanding] of tribute and Capitol character POVs. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #32: Do Or Die.**

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_~ And so sayeth the Lord, do not rest when the eyes of the enemy are on you, for they'll never leave you, and you'll never be alone._

**_Vivian Whiplash: District 10 Female P.O.V (16)_**

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Anahita and Maren's dying screams echo in her ears, a bombardment of terror and fright and pain overwhelming her senses. The soles of her feet hurt like crazy, as her shoes collide with the solid floor, her breathing becoming more erratic as she, Cyril, and Ponty race away from the ensuing chaos behind them. They've abandoned the maintenance tunnel, going to a secondary level just above ground, where the echoing booms that Maren had commented on now long gone, and it is only their crazed breathing filling the empty void. Vivian clutches her side for a second, continuing to run, until she trips over herself, her bow falling out of her hand and clattering onto the ground. She groans in pain, having scuffed her knees up some on the ground, a floor of hogwash gray and spittle green.

Cyril's hands are on her shoulders, Ponty catching up behind them, and the Career is saying something into her ears, but she can't quite hear him very well, it not necessarily mattering as the voices have warped into white noise at this point, blurring white noise and jarring static filling her head. Vivian pushes Cyril aside, scooting up against the far right wall, hugging her knees to her chest. Cyril continues speaking at her, and Ponty is saying something to Cyril she's sure, but all Vivian can hear is Maren and Anahita's screams. She also hears Jason yelling at her, like he did yesterday when he's lost to the Peacekeepers in their sewer fight, and all Vivian can think about, all that is resting on her mind, is that she's failed. These people, these people she would've killed in any normal circumstances back in some arena-dome, trusted her. Trusted her to lead them somewhere, a promised land with a dead president as the end goal, and all Vivian has given them is sacrifices and death.

Perhaps they were right, Tamerin and Maira. Vivian realizes she hadn't thought about them in quite some time, since all of this began. It is what Tamerin says, with his disappointed stare and his silver hair, one hand on her shoulder - he used to always place a hand on her face, never the shoulder, for the shoulder would be too cold of an interaction - the problem he has with her, that she involves herself in matters she doesn't need to involve herself in, even before she shoots the Head Peacekeeper in the face, or any of that. Maira doesn't even look her in the eyes when she says she doesn't want to see her ever again, and Vivian's words fall from her lips, falling and dying and shriveling up like droplets of acid on her tongue. She would've never asked out Tamerin and Maira had she not loved them, had she not believed to love them after what her brother does, when he reveals his sexuality.

It is his strength that emboldens her to take that first step, and then it is his strength at how her brother didn't flinch or falter in the wind when his coming out does not go as he plans to keep her resolve from dipping down any further. That she has the strength to do whatever she can put her mind to, and while no one will compliment her as she does it, Vivian will do it... she could've kept her mouth shut and let the others go off into the city as they pleased, instead of joining her, but no, she opened her mouth, puts on the bravado that might've never been real, and look at where it has gotten her. Look where it has gotten her, filled to the brim with dead bodies, the screeching of mutts, and Vivian clawing at her own arms, trying to tear out of her skin, to scrub the tiny splash of Maren's blood at her wrist.

"I'm so sorry," she says. Vivian Whiplash has never apologized for anything in her life, nothing she can't control of course. She didn't have to tell Rodric, who she's pushed away at the last minute, instead of joining her - if he joined her, he would've died too, a voice in her head whispers sinisterly - to drink himself to death, but it is what felt right in the moment, lashing back at her district partner. Vivian knows she never should've snapped at Anahita for crying last night, or get upset with Maren for consoling her, but all Vivian sees in that moment is distractions, people hindering her goal at advancing, at building a better future for herself. A future where she works back towards Tamerin and Maira, to show how she's changed. A single tear falls down her cheek, Vivian squeezing her eyes shut. "This is all my fault."

There's the crunch of gravel in her ears as Cyril crouches down in front of her, Vivian burying her face into her hands and pressing her face into her knees. Vivian has never cried over her decisions, nothing she can't control of course. This is a sign of weakness, a weakness she cannot afford anyone to see. Why are Cyril and Ponty even still with her? Why are they even thinking of following her any further. What can she do? What can any of them do at this point, now? Is there a point to this journey, to this struggle? What if it ends up with them all dead? It had been a possibility, when it crosses her mind to take the fight to the president, that killing the most protected woman in the country would not have them just walk out of the war unscathed, but she never expects it to go south like this.

"It's none of your fault," Cyril tells her, and when she looks up at him he's closer to her than she'd like him to be, but she has no more fight in her to tell him to leave.

"No-" she shakes her head back and forth, sputtering slightly, and in the back, sheathed in the shadows of the hallway, is Ponty, balancing on the end of his hammer awkwardly, the handle coated in the black blood of the vampire mutts. "Anahita and Maren and Jason are all dead cause of me," she locks eyes with Cyril, who flinches back away from her, a strip of his shirt ripped off and tied around his shoulder from the wound the mutt inflicted on him. Blood is such a striking color of red, Vivian notes, and her fingers immediately go to rip the ribbon in her hair out, as she no longer wants to see that color ever again. "You all followed me cause I promised I'd keep you safe and-" she shakes her head again, unable to stop the sob that rips from her throat. Ever since she hears her name called out of the reaping bowl, nothing has gone the way she thought it would, it has all been a disaster.

And now her closest friend in the group is going to deny her the ability to feel guilty? How dare he!

Cyril looks up at Ponty, who looks back at him with a shrug, biting on the inside of his cheek. Vivian's arms fall laxly to her sides, another couple of tears sliding down her face. The mutts are no longer pursuing them, as they've stopped several times on their run already to check, and if there had been any left, Vivian figures that Anahita already killed them before falling herself. It is a shocking sight to the trio, breaking out from the underground to see the Capitol in a complete state of disarray. The sun is blotted out from a sulfur streaked sky, the sound of gunfire echoing in the air, and there's blood running in the streets, torn flags blowing in the breeze before being ripped off of their posts, glass pooled down on the ground in crystal shards, a few corpses lining the walls, until Ponty finds another manhole for them to dive into, to wait out any storm that would be coming for them.

It is only for a moment, but Vivian feels it is best to keep moving which is how they've found themselves in this current predicament, and she's made them all stop, while catching her breath. The tears resume again, but this time there are no words coming out of Vivian's mouth except choked sobs causing her chest to shudder, racked gasps hiccupping in her throat. She's a failure, a disappointment, and most of all, she doesn't even believe in herself. Had all of that been a lie? The bravado? The stealing? The act of being a Robin Hood in the night? A tiger is supposed to be a fearsome predator, and all Vivian can think about now is how much of a scared little girl she is, and scared little girls are no terrifying beast.

The Career tries saying something again, and she can hear him over cries but refuses to acknowledge him. Vivian wants to give up, honestly.

That is until Cyril motions forward, pushing her arms out of the way so she cannot hold her sides any longer, before he places his hands on her shoulders, leans in, and kisses her on the mouth. Her eyes widen immediately, melting into the romantic touch, but all she can smell is blood, and Anahita's screams in her eardrums, as that little girl sacrificed herself so the kid kissing her could live, and she doesn't see tears in his eyes. Where's his human emotion? Ponty clears his throat awkwardly in the corner, coughing into a fist, and when Cyril breaks apart from her, she searches his face for any sign of emotion, there being a hint of misty-eyes in the corners of his face, but beyond that, his mouth turned into a slight frown, he looking at her expectantly.

It had been a pretty damn good kiss; Vivian doesn't expect him to be able to kiss like that.

However, all she can feel now, overwhelming the melancholy in her veins is anger, piss and vinegar flowing through her soul, and her face turns into a grim snarl, Vivian slapping Cyril in the face.

"What the fuck was that for?" she shouts at him angrily.

He looks at her, and there's immediately a sense of upsetedness moving through Vivian's body as Cyril's eyes have darkened, and his frown has only gotten worse. A blush settles on his cheeks, she able to see it even in the very dim hallway. There are a few lights above them, rectangular kind bolted into the roof, but some of them are flickering on and off, dousing every few feet occasionally in a bath of halcyon light, the walls a shade of olive green, the paint starting to fade. "You- I wanted to get to you stop crying..." Cyril whispers, and one hand continues to grip down onto his injury, like squeezing a sponge.

"Did I ask for you to kiss me though?" Vivian's voice continues to get louder, she getting to her feet, snatching her bow up. If this had been an arena, Vivian wouldn't even hesitate to shoot him in the heart, but she's more focused on the fact that he believes this to be the course of action to take. She'd rather he have slapped her or punched her before _kissing _her. "Cyril!"

"I'm sorry! I won't do it again!" he shouts back at her, hand gripping on the hilt of his sword, but it is Ponty tensing, taking a battle stance between the two of them.

She goes to say something back at him, perhaps in the vein of how being kissed is not helping the situation given who just died, but Ponty interrupts. her. "We have company," he says, holding onto his hammer.

Cyril blinks for a moment, before turning to face the darkness of the hallway in front of them. Vivian draws an arrow, trying to not stand too close to him, as her skin is starting to crawl, she pulling back on the drawstring as she can very well hear the rush of footsteps. However, the footsteps do not sound heavy by any means, but more soft, like they're not Peacekeeper boots, but regular shoes. Vivian's shoes from the training center are disgusting now, covered in filth and grime and blood and God knows what else. She tightens her grip on the bowstring. She missed way too many mutts back in the maintenance tunnel, and had she not missed so many shots, perhaps Anahita would still be alive. With a bitter taste in the back of her throat, Vivian comes to terms with that there wouldn't have been any way to save Maren.

She won't miss any of her shots this time.

"Take another step forward and I'll shoot," Vivian warns whoever it is, there sounding like three pairs of footsteps out into the darkness, and she tightens her grip even tighter on the bow. "I've got an arrow aimed at you and I won't hesitate to fire. I've lost too many people already today."

It sounds as if the world has paused, and it is just her, Ponty, and Cyril's labored breathing, and if she glances over at him, she can see his cheeks with a tinge of pink, she shaking her head. If they all make it out alive of this, she'll ask him what is running through his head the moment he kisses her, but right now they have bigger problems.

However, she does not expect the voice of Bloom Estrada to be what answers her statement back. "Vivian...?" comes the voice of the girl from Twelve.

"Bloom?" Ponty asks, with a frown.

"Ponty?" There's Vanya's voice in the background, just following the girl from Twelve.

"Vanya?" Cyril echoes, a frown etching on his face.

"Cyril, that you?" and lastly it is the voice of Ciphra Longsdale, and then Vivian sees it, as the three aforementioned tributes appear out of the dark, Vanya wrapped up in gauze on his shoulder, but both Ciphra and Bloom appear to be free of any injuries.

Ponty physically drops his hammer, Cyril's sword falling lax in his hands, and Vivian, who has never considered herself to be emotional in the way of a little girl, almost bursts into tears as she races forward, throwing her arms around Bloom in a hug, catching the girl off guard, Bloom stumbling back some.

The others catch up in the feel good moments, Ponty throwing his arms around Ciphra, while Cyril gives Vanya a fist bump. Had this been any other environment, she knows for a fact that everyone would be at each other's throats, but Vivian has never been more relieved to see a set of faces in her life. Unlike the sour expressions of Amaris and Aris down in the sewers, these three fill her with hope, because she remembers where they left them, back at the training center, and who they followed out through that hole in the wall when the RPGs were fired above their heads.

She's made it to freedom, she has brought some of them to safety, finally.

"What- what are you doing down here?" Ponty asks Ciphra, and when Vivian looks over at the two of them, she can see that the girl from Three is beside herself with emotion, openly crying while smiling, Vanya asking Cyril about his wound, and it is Bloom, with her smile, that makes Vivian shudder slightly, for even in that smile, there's a hint of sadness. Something's happened, and not all is right with the world, she can tell.

"You've made it to the Underground Defense," she says, nodding her head. "Welcome to the Phoenix Rebellion, where we will need every man that we can get."

Vivian's heart begins to beat faster in her chest. Anahita, Maren, Jason... their deaths will not be in vain. Cyril can get his injury treated, Ponty can give Amaris that good bitch slap he's been dying to send, and Vivian knows what it all means, as her allies look at the other two tributes, eyes wide, speechless and out of breath.

It's showtime, and Vivian is not going to let another opportunity like this slip through her fingers.

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**_Mirek Bosco: District 12 Male P.O.V (18)_**

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He could use some of Bloom's courage, some of Bloom's strength, and some of her sensibility right about now. The last two days have been long and exhausting, tiring and sapping him of his energy, even given the fact that he's done nothing to show for it, being stuck inside a prison cell since the morning when the tribute trackers went boom. Mirek is lying down on a slab of concrete jutting out from the wall, in a holding cell away from the mansion and away from any other prisoners, Peacekeepers doing rounds of the outer city blocks, and several of the inner city blocks, gathering up citizens - just people to Mirek, really - who are suspected of treason or abetting the rebels in any way, such as the woman Mirek has rushed to save because she's accused of hoarding supplies in case any rebels wished to go hide under her basement.

Mirek sees the woman hanging from a cedar branch alongside several other accused a city block away from where he's being held, while trying to lift his handcuffed hands to his head and nurse the splitting ache that runs from the center of his skull to both temples. The booted kick to the face had certainly done its work, and Mirek recalls thrashing around in his captors grip before the electric kiss of a taser shocks him back into unconsciousness, the next moment he finding himself thrown into the cell. There had been a battle recently, as Mirek overhears some of the guards talking about it, and apparently, to what he's heard, the rebels lost, some tributes identified as burnt corpses milling Gamemakers Square, but the true people that the president wanted, such as their leader Rennie Davis, or the victoress Valencia Shale, have survived and are back in hiding.

The prison cell he is in is one of many, an elevated building constructed of concrete that glows an austere amber color when the sun falls on it, as there's no roof above him, the hot sun beating down on his head. It makes falling asleep at night easier he supposes, but that is how Mirek hears everything, from the gun shots to the exploding mortar shells, and he can see many plumes of smoke rising in the sky when he presses his body flat against the bars of the cell. There's another empty slab of concrete for someone else, but he has yet to really speak to any of the guards that come to feed him. As far as he can tell, the reason he's stuck in this open aired prison instead of with the president is that the president has the tendency to kill her hostages, and Mirek immediately knows what that entails... the valuable tributes, the ones with connections that she would've had in her clutches - he immediately thinks of Rodric, which saddens him somewhat - would be ones with ties to the rebellion. There's no one important in Mirek's life; if he was to be in the president's hands- a shudder finishes the thought for him.

This is the best alternative, he supposes, as is it that, or being dead like Sophiana, for he hears that being passed around as well. He doesn't exactly cry, as Mirek has never really found the place for tears in his life, but he does let out a shaky gasp, hands going to his knees as he sinks to the floor. The last action he had ever done with any of the other tributes had been to try and save her, not because he necessarily wanted to, but he felt like he had to, especially with it being Sophiana, a girl he knew who wouldn't survive on her own, as broken as she seemed to be, and the last second before he reaches her, the ceiling had collapsed, and the rest of the training center with it. He doesn't get to hear much of the conversation about some of the other dead tributes that litter the city, but Mirek knows it is more than just Sophiana and the other six after the trackers exploded in their necks.

Is Bloom dead? Mirek rubs a hand over his face, squeezing his eyes shut, feeling a headache coming on. If she's dead, and some other tributes are alive - he won't name names, but Mirek is definitely thinking them - he might try and rip the bars off of the cell, but that doesn't do him any good. Anytime Mirek tries to get up in someone's business, always a Peacekeeper walking by for instance, he's clubbed at the knuckles. He tries reaching for one of their throats, perhaps to pull them in even closer, but he's met with a jolt of electricity through his system as a taser shocks him in the neck, Mirek falling back and hitting his head on the concreted floor, where the headache is from. Someone snarls at him through the walls, and Mirek hugs his body tight to him, trying to keep himself through his breathing regiment.

It is one he taught his sister how to keep under control whenever she'd have a panic attack, after losing their father to the nasty rebel business - if Bloom were there to hear him think it, she might've socked him in the face - and he has his hands on her shoulders gently, telling her things will be alright, and he'll get a promotion in the mines and be lifted up as a foreman and he'll make a lot of money for the family and things will be alright, things will be alright, things will be alright, and things will be- he's reaped. Mirek bites down on his tongue, hard, at the memory, tasting copper as it slides over his teeth. He pulls himself up into a seating position on the concrete bed, resting the knob on the back of his head in a hole in the wall, one he had found while counting the number of tallies scratched in paint on the wall.

There's the sound of some female voice shouting, his ears pricking up at the nose, but he keeps his eyes shut, concentrating on breathing deeply in through his nose and out of his mouth. He squirms a bit as the voice gets louder, and louder, _and louder _until it sounds like it is right in front of him, even accompanied by the sound of a jail cell door being opened, someone getting tossed into a room, and then the door being slammed shut again. Mirek opens his eyes however, when the new arrival begins shouting once more, and this time it sounds like the noise is coming from the same room as him. His eyes widen at the sight of blonde haired, Career from One, and a very agitated looking Satin Spinel, she dressed in her training uniform like when he had last seen her three days ago.

"Hey, assholes!" Satin shouts at the Peacekeepers who began walking away from the cell. She rushes at the bars, banging on them with her fists. "Get back here, you _fucks!_" He raises an eyebrow at the swearing; she didn't strike him as being someone with a foul mouth.

Mirek gets off of the concrete slab that acts as his bed, and takes a step forward. "Satin?" he asks, almost reproachfully, and his entire body tenses. Sure, they're not in an arena, but this is a sworn enemy of his in the classical sense, as had it been any other kind of setting, she'd stab him in the heart.

She turns around at the sound of her voice, and inhales sharply at the sight at him, but unlike Mirek, she doesn't tense up, but rather the Career deflates, as if someone had let all the air out of her body. "Mirek?" she whispers, her voice barely able to heard over the other sounds of the makeshift prison. Before he can even react, she lunges for him, he falling back so his butt sits just barely on the edge of the slab, and Satin has wrapped her arms around him in a hug, a choked gasp getting caught in his throat.

"I-" he starts, lost for words, and then he gingerly places his arms back around Satin, hugging her back while she presses her head into his chest. "Uh, hi..."

Satin retracts from the hug, wiping at her face, and he can see that there are some tears sliding down them at a rather brisk pace. She shakes her head, biting down on her cheek. "I- I'm sorry, I... I just haven't seen anyone since the trackers went off and I thought I'd be all alone and-" she catches a breath, putting her hands on her knees, looking up at him. "Are you okay?" she asks him.

"I'm fine," Mirek rubs his shoulder, an itch starting to spread down his arms. This feels wrong, speaking amicably to someone that'd otherwise be an antagonist towards his survival. Sophiana had been different, he supposes, as the girl would've never posed any true threat to him in the long run, but a Spinel? "Are you okay?" he asks back at her, afraid she's going to hug him again.

"I could be better," she nods her head, scratching at a strand of hair sticking to her face. Satin is covered in sweat, she out of breath, and he can see a shiner just under her left cheek. He motions to it silently, as if he is scratching at his own face, she raising an eyebrow before nodding. "One of them gave it to me yesterday, when I was trying to fight my way out of their grip," Satin laughs nervously to herself, pulling at her collar. "I decided to make my getaway by running straight across rooftops, before getting caught going into an apartment..." her gaze centers on to a rather non-descript part of the floor. "Foolish of me to think I could actually escape. I didn't have a plan, I was just running..." she juts her chin at him. "How about you? How'd they catch you?"

Mirek's face burns red for a moment, he scratching the back of his neck with a sheepish grin. "I saved an old woman from getting beaten up by Peacekeepers by attacking them, and then a boot to the face," his shoulders slump in defeat. "They hung the woman from a tree..."

Satin inhales sharply again, pressing herself against the wall. Mirek sits back down again, keeping himself firmly planted against the wall. He had heard of some talk about another tribute being found, and that there were a couple working with the President as lackeys, but Mirek in all honesty figured Satin, from what he had seen of her from afar to just be one of the lackey tributes. To see a Career, from One nonetheless, be a captive alongside him... he's not able to give a name to the emotion that flows through him, but ironically, it feels good. It feels deserved.

She turns around, fingers curling around the bars, and for a good measure, Satin pulls on them.

"They're not going to budge," Mirek comments, looking over at her. "I already tried."

"How long have you been in here?"

"Two days," he says. "I've heard it said that we'll be moving soon, though," and he juts his head out like his gaze is going beyond the door. The cells are all on a raised pathway, stairs connecting both ends to a courtyard in the middle, where most of the Peacekeepers mill about till one goes and makes the rounds cage by cage. The length is that of a football field, Mirek unsure of how many people there are exactly in the prison, but there are four floors of it. "We'll all be stuck down there and then sent elsewhere. I imagine many of the citizens in here will be freed," and from the way his new cellmate looks at him, he figures her question to be '_Held citizens?_' "Many of the Capitolites in here are accused or abetting treason in one way or another."

"None of the people here are that stupid," Satin comments.

"Rennie Davis was," but he can see the way Satin shakes her head, he furrowing his eyebrows together. Even after all he's seen, after all she's seen, with innocent kinds getting their necks torn open, she's going to sit there and defend her captors? He goes to say something, but she cuts him to the punch.

Satin turns back around to him, crossing her arms over one another. "I am a Career, from District One," she says, Mirek rolling his eyes. She's simply stating the obvious. "They would've taken me straight to the president if I was supposed to be an important captive, being a Career tribute."

"I thought that too," Mirek mentions. When the Peacekeeper boot had connected with his face again and again, all he could think about is where he'll end up, in the clutches of a woman who believes she's queen of Panem. "I thought that being a tribute would send me straight to her," he shrugs his shoulders. "Perhaps tomorrow that's where we'll go. We're too valuable."

"We are too valuable," Satin agrees with him. She picks at her fingernails, flicking something onto the floor, and when she speaks again, her voice is soft, like it had been when she made eye contact with him. "I overheard some of the guards in the holding cell I was at yesterday mention that we were meant to be kept alive," and she pauses, Mirek turning his head to the side, as Satin brings her eyebrows in together, as if she's going to start crying once more. "Before I got shipped here, they were talking again... there's only ten tributes left," a jolt of electricity races through Mirek's body. "In the battle today, they found Sage, Cambric, and Seth's burnt up bodies. Apparently the president executed Jason, and in the sewers, a Peacekeeper patrol found Maren and Anahita," Satin holds off a choked sob. "None of us are supposed to die, because when the rebels lose... they're going to send us into an arena anyways, cause they still need their victor."

He could've been knocked off of the seat with a feather.

Ten tributes left, from twenty-four reaped. Sage and Cambric... Seth and Jason... Maren and Anahita... he frowns at the names. He isn't close to any of them - _wasn't, _his mind corrects, _use the correct terminology at least now _\- but in a sigh of relief, which makes him feel awful about himself, none of those names are Bloom. Bloom is still alive, and if she knows he's still alive, she'll keep fighting. He needs to keep fighting.

"That won't happen," he says, with a shake of his head in dissent, a lump forming in his throat. "The rebels are going to win..."

"I don't think so," Satin snips back, but she's not cocky or aggressive in her language, she unable to meet his eyes. "They were slaughtered on the battlefield today," her jaw quivers slightly, and Satin turns back around to face the courtyard from their second floor jail cell. He hopes she doesn't snore; Mirek can't stand people who snore. "I don't think it's looking good for us, Mirek."

He's not so sure he's going to throw in the towel and give up. Satin didn't strike him as being someone like that either.

Mirek is unsure exactly what to do with himself now, so he lies down on the slab, holding his arms from underneath his head, looking up at the ceiling, at the boring old ceiling he's looked at for the last twelve hours straight, trying to count the number of paint splatters and chipped sections of concrete that he can find, only to look over when Satin slaps down on the bars again. "What?"

"Are you a good actor, Mirek?" Satin asks him, a rather random and sudden question, and not one at all befitting to the situation they're currently in. Her eyes are alit with fervor, unlike the sadness he had just seen in her facial expression thirty seconds ago.

"No," he tells her, sitting upright. Mirek is just never able to be given a kept position, is he? "Why, are you?"

"Definitely," she says, twirling a lock of hair around her pointer finger on her left hand. "I managed to act like someone I wasn't back home, so..." her voice trails off, Mirek wanting to ask her what on Earth she is talking about and how any of it is relevant to the fact that they're locked in a jail cell. Satin shakes her head, blinking a few times. "Besides the point, but anyways..." and then her mouth curls into a grin, a shiver sliding down Mirek's back, as she crouches down in front of him. "Tomorrow, when we're all lined up and going to be sent elsewhere... I've got an idea."

Mirek raises both eyebrows up at the prospect, hearing the roar of his heartbeat in his chest, and then likewise, smiles back at her. Satin Spinel doesn't want to die, and she'll do whatever she can to make sure that doesn't happen. If she has something planned, he's all in.

He won't become another hanging corpse like the woman he tried to save.

Mirek refuses to have that become his fate.

* * *

**_Ponty Carr: District 6 Male P.O.V (17)_**

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The mug of tea in his hands is warm as Ponty lifts it to his lips to take a sip. The hot liquid burns his throat, going down at scalding temperatures, but he needs it to be piping hot. Something about liquid turning cold that initially is warm has always struck him as weird and something unnatural. He needs whatever he can to take his mind off of what happened back in the service tunnels, where the environment is tumultuous and unsafe. Seeing Bloom, Vanya, and Ciphra through the bleak and gloom of the tunnel, as Cyril and Vivian glared at one another... he's never been so happy to see tributes before in his life, but he goes gentle in hugging Vanya, seeing the gauze wrapped around his shoulder. The three of them are ushered into Command, or as Bloom it calls it, the Underground Defense, and he has to swallow the snort he nearly gives up.

This is their defense? This is where the rebellion has been coming from? He has to remind himself of his manners when Pollux Aetos, the Master of Ceremonies, greets them, and beside him, Criston Pellock, Ponty's mentor. He gives him the victor a hug, rather out of intuition he supposes, for he never actually spoke to him much, since he actually hadn't even been around all that often over the course of the three days in waiting to be served up on a platter with a side of butter. Ponty wanders around the District Six apartment floor when he isn't training, keeping as far away from Amaris as he could possibly get, she finding every way to rub her success in his face, but all he is able to think about is the kiss he had pressed onto her lips and the bubble of protest that forms in her throat, or the bruised knuckles he gets from punching her in the side... it all evaporating into nothingness when Criston tells him that she's still alive.

How? How is his district partner still alive? Thinking about her causes him to clench the tea mug a bit harder, fingers straining, Bloom reaching out and pressing a hand onto his shoulder, eyebrows furrowed in concern. Everyone is gathered in the main room, the holographic table showing the streets of the Capitol alive and buzzing, but there is no necessary celebration happening currently among the others. From what he's gathered, as Valencia Shale makes an appearance too, covered in blood, her sword sparkling more red than silver while she drags it on the ground, is that there's a battle, and the rebellion lost. Another victor from One, Lance Viel, has not been found, and the victor trio of Hale Cornerstone, Hector Merviere, and Kevia Janelle have vanished too, a day before the battle. Sage, Cambric, and Seth all lie dead in a ditch somewhere, his mind thinking of Anahita and Maren's corpses down below, and he has to set the tea down on the counter near him, it no longer feeling as warm as it had just a few minutes ago.

He brings his attention over to the conversation at hand, Ciphra and Criston off to the side some with Pollux and Valencia listening in earnest. Vanya is over in the corner with Cyril, he pointing out names and faces on the screen, but when Ponty sees Vivian, she's counting the arrows in her quiver in silence, Bloom simply sitting there, occasionally getting up to touch the radio in the corner. That's been her job, calling out to the districts and their mayors, getting the citizens to fight back, but with the forces that have been gathered and subsequently killed, there being maybe three hundred left, all dispersed in bands around the Capitol now being hunted, or told to come back to base if they can make it, Bloom has received nothing but silence. This rebellion, the Phoenixes, have not taken flight.

Ponty has yet to see their fearless leader, the Avox Rennie Davis. He knows what he looks like, after all, from the video at the reaping where Ponty is stunned into silence, but this is different. This man, a man with no voice, is somehow speaking for the hundreds of thousands that have tried and failed beforehand, in a long line of failure, and he's done it in less than a month. He had managed to escape the battle with his head on his shoulders, but Pollux tells them all that he's vanished below to a different level and hasn't been seen since. Ponty really hopes that they won't enter his room and find the guy swinging off of a ceiling fan with shoelaces tied around his neck. It is a dark joke, he supposes, but these are trying times. Ponty wouldn't mind seeing Amaris swing from a ceiling fan, he tightening his grip just so on the handle of has hammer.

He picks up his still hot mug of tea, sitting closer to Ciphra and the others, they gathered around a computer screen, the light of the monitor flowing over the girl's face.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute..." Criston pinches the bridge of his nose, frowning. His pale skin is almost translucent in the light of the computer. "The key to the Capitol's security system has been sitting here under my nose for three whole days? How... how'd I miss that?"

"It's not like anyone's ever called you observant before," Vanya jokes from his standpoint, before bringing his attention back to the screen he's showing Cyril.

Ciphra scrolls down on the bar on the side of the page, before turning to look up at the assorted Capitolites above her. "You know my father, Criston?" The victor nods wordlessly at the question. "My father, Mr. Longsdale, used to be a security contractor for the Capitol when I was little, and apparently he and several others helped redesign the mainframe security system for the entire city, including the mansion," her eyes sparkle at that.

"The mansion too?" Valencia adds her input, frowning and placing her sword in the hilt strapped to her side. "Like in what way?"

Ponty has never been observant of security systems or anything of the like. If he were home, for instance, _he's _the security for the Carr glass shop. Should anyone wish to steal something or break in and try to take funds, he's the hired - hired being a loose word here - muscle to take down any intruders. No cameras. No alarms, no breaking of windows, but leaving their work out in the 'open', where it looks like a decadent slice of cake for a diabetic to steal from. He's never asked his family why getting a Peacekeeper to act as their security had been something they stayed away from, but now having met Amaris, if any of them are like her at all, he's never going to want to touch that idea again. Is his family's shop even still there? Criston has mentioned fighting in the districts, in all of them, actually, but to what extent, he does not say.

"Shut down alarms, unlock any locked doors with electric or wireless access..." Pollux frowns, turning away from the table so he's sitting on it instead. "Bonnie would be a sitting duck... and knowing her, she'd try and make the loss an opportunity of hers for an advantage. She'd think she's invincible or invulnerable, even with all of her bells and whistles down, too stubborn to admit defeat..." Glee rises in his throat, it making Ponty feel sick to his stomach. "We could waltz in and end the rebellion then and there..."

Yeah, Ponty does not believe that'll happen. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Bloom take off her headset again, slamming it onto the desk, but no one else turns their way to look at her. Unsuccessful again, he supposes. Vivian gets up too, putting all the arrows back in her quiver, some of them still painted black, covered in the mutts' blood. Looking over at Cyril and Vanya, the Career seems to be bouncing on his feet at something, and when Ponty squints his eyes, he can see that the dancer is pointing at pictures of _them, _the tributes, and he's pointing at Satin's, the girl from One's face lit up like a Christmas tree, but so is his as well... does that mean she's still alive? Cyril's grinning like a gleeful idiot, the two men then deciding to join the gathered force by Criston's computer.

Ponty looks over again at the radio receiver, something gold glimmering off of the table. It looks like a ring, but that is not what gets his attention, rather however a block resting up against a monitor and the radio that he is unsure whether or not it had been there before, and if it hadn't been, when had it been placed? Down the hallway, as there are a few other people wandering around, a few of them Avoxes, and one looking like a man from Twelve with ashy hair and hazel eyes, Ponty sees another man, from the looks of it at the back, heading down the hallway the trio of tributes brought he, Cyril, and Vivian through. He doesn't recall seeing another set of doors or ladders or anything of the sort there, but it doesn't matter to him, he shrugging his shoulders and turning around.

"How did you even notice it, Ciphra?" Vivian asks, and Ponty realizes that her hair is completely down now, she must've discarded the red ribbon in the tunnel somewhere, and then the furthermore detail of Cyril not standing next to her, but closer to Criston and Valencia.

"My father has a robot," Ciphra says, completely full of nonchalance, which has Vanya snort, before Cyril elbows him. "And Criston helped my father design it, too, shortly after your victory..."

"I did?" Criston frowns in surprise. "I'll be honest, Ciphra, I don't remember it."

"The codenames say Veracity," the girl from Three leans into the screen, almost smudging it with her nose, which looks rather silly at an afar glance. "Veracity is the name of the robot at our house, and each file here says Veracity's arm, Veracity's left leg, and so on and so forth..." she turns around to face the others, but Ponty doesn't know what for, cause he has no idea what any of this means, disappointment flooding Ciphra's face with a scowl. "My father hid the files for disarming the Capitol's security systems in plain sight, and I know it!"

"What would we need to be able to look at all of them?" Valencia asks. "I am sure that, and no offense Criston, that this computer will give us some of them, but not all of them, and we do not have a lot of time on our hands."

Ciphra frowns at that, it must be a curveball getting tossed her way. Ponty frowns too, but not at the question, which again, he won't have an answer for. What's that ticking noise? "I'd need a computer or mainframe system with enough processing power to view all the files at once, and then delete them and any copies instantaneously. Wiping them from the system means they no longer work, and," she gestures towards the holographic display of the Capitol, "I've checked all the systems here, and while they work, they're old... I need something newer."

Pollux's eyebrows rise at that, Valencia's as well, the Master of Ceremonies smiling, but there's a shallow darkness hidden in the light. "This is going to sound crazy, but there's only one computer that no one is using that I can think of and-"

Ponty leans in to hear the answer, but the Interviewer cuts off, his gaze going to one of the other doorways, and likewise the others follow, because _there he is. _The boy from Six gets a good look at their leader, their Phoenix who is burning so bright, Rennie Davis, he standing in the doorway, and looking different. Seeing the man up close is different from him being a zoomed in projection on a screen, where the man's arms are thin and gaunt, face slim and cheekbones hollow, lips scraggly and broken, and Ponty shivers at the look in the Avox's eyes. Valencia breaks away from the group, eyeing their leader up and down with a smile.

"You changed your hair color back to auburn..." she says, a hint of sadness creeping up in her voice, one Ponty picks up on. He's dealt with too many disgruntled customers before, those wanting to debate prices and not getting what they wanted. Didn't she have blonde hair at one point, her locks now the same color as his shaved head?

He can see that in the Avox's hands is some sort of tablet, fingers moving away at the keys. "_Felt like it was time for a change... and there's no need to go back into hiding now..._"

Cyril steps away as well, holding out his hand for Rennie to shake. "I have wanted to meet you since the trackers went off, Mr. Davis," and with a lump in his throat, "You better kill that bitch of a president for me, sir."

Ponty tilts his head to the side again, as that ticking is getting louder and louder and _louder. _His tea has gone cold all of a sudden, he realizes, as he picks it up to take another sip, the rim of the mug just barely touching his lips when he frowns, tugging at Bloom's shoulder. "Do- do you hear that, Bloom?"

She looks at him, worry echoing back to him in her eyes, she frowning likewise. "Yeah... a ticking, right?" Bloom searches around, lips parted open. "I- I don't know where it is coming from."

While the others began to start talking to one another, Rennie's fingers constantly going for the tablet keys, Ciphra bringing up her point of the Veracity Security system, Ponty sees Vanya patting his pockets, a look of panic replacing the resigned relaxation on his face instead. The dancer's breathing becomes erratic, his chest rising and falling. "Where- where is it?" he lets out, ripping open the zippers on the sides of his pants. "Where'd it go?"

"Where'd what go?" Vivian asks, looking over at him, having been leaning above Ciphra's shoulder to read the computer screen.

"Zola- Zola's ring..." Vanya hiccups, sounding like he's on the verge of tears. "The one I picked up during interviews- I... I had promised I'd keep it with me and-"

"It's on the table next to Bloom's radio," Cyril says, not looking over his shoulder, also staring at the screen with Ciphra.

_Bloom's radio... Bloom's radio... _Cyril's voice echoes in Ponty's head, and he faces the table with the radio on it, and the golden glimmer he had seen just a few moments ago, that being Zola's ring, a saddening thought hitting him in the face as Vanya makes his way over to it, his breathing returning to normal. Bloom mirrors Ponty's movements too, the frown on her face growing ever more long, and the ticking continues, but Ponty hears something else on the air as well, and it sends a chill down his spine.

A hissing noise, like when a kettle is about to pop, and from the way Bloom's eyes are widening, he can tell she hears it too, while everyone else is wrapped up in conversation. _Bloom's radio, Bloom's radio, Bloom's radio... the radio... _

The radio!

"Vanya, get away from the table! Get back, Vanya!" Bloom starts screaming at the top of her lungs, and he's never heard someone else yell with such terror in their voice. "Vanya, don't! Get ba-"

The male from Eleven looks up and over at Bloom, his fingers just grazing the table, Zola's engagement ring in his open palm, when Ponty hears the ticking and hissing reach a fever pitch, both harmonizing in synchronization. The strange cube sitting next to the radio, the one Ponty sees, is glowing an austere amber color, like if tea in his hand were to be given a color, the mug falling out of his hands and crashing onto the floor. Bloom goes to yell another warning, this time everyone's attention turned to them, when the entire foundation shakes, and the cube explodes, bits of shrapnel flying everywhere, a fireball shooting into the air, and the last thing Ponty sees before being blown back is Vanya's body getting swallowed whole by a tide of flaming orange and sulfur.

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**_Bloom Estrada: District 12 Female P.O.V (18)_**

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One minute, Vanya is there, reaching for that golden ring of Zola's, and the next minute, he's not. Bloom feels herself get lifted in the air, back slamming into the far wall, a croak of pain bubbling in her throat. The explosion causes her eardrums to pop, she collapsing onto the floor, emitting a loose groan. Her vison is all hazy, a plume of ash and dust and God knows what else settling on the air following the echo of the bomb. She struggles to lift her head up, an immense pain blooming in the back of her neck, and she can see, smeared up against the side of the wall, Vanya, half of his body on fire, and he's not moving, an arm gone and sending a torrent of blood onto the floor. Bloom gags at the sight, struggling to get to her feet, unable to tear her eyes away from the carnage, but she's also setting her sights on the fact that there's a massive hole in the wall from where the explosion had come from, and Bloom can see, through the mist, a legion of white.

A weak cry releases from her throat in a strangled tone. "Peacekeepers!" Bloom barely manages to make out, and then they break through the mesh, the dark black coats of paint on their assault rifles a calling of death, the song striking straight into her heart. There doesn't seem to be more than five or six of them, but there's hardly anyone in the Underground Defense either, she struggling to get to her feet when another blast just off to her right by the other entrance goes off, Bloom sailing in the opposite direction, but she luckily doesn't crash into anything. Vanya's body is still smoking, pathetic flames that are tiny in size starting to extinguish themselves up and down his sleeves, one of the Peacekeepers going over and rolling the body over. She can hear the man closest to her speak into his microphone, but it is all garbled noise compared to the ringing in her ears.

Bloom eyes a piece of shrapnel sitting just a few feet away from her, she crawling over to it, trying to keep the groaning noise of pain and exertion down to a minimum. She just barely gets her hand around it when the Peacekeeper turns around, and she can tell the man has his scope on her, adrenaline flowing through her veins as Bloom hoists herself to her feet, shard in hand now, and with a scream, dives it straight into the man's throat, directly from the front. There's a splatter of vermillion onto her, she falling with the body, as another Peacekeeper aims his weapon at her, firing a few rounds that hit the man's comrade instead of her, but where Bloom lands has her scream again, this time in terror. She's looking directly into the half melted face of Vanya, and the crater that sits in his skull, a piece of the detonated bomb stuck in his right eye, and she can feel vomit in her stomach threatening to reappear.

She turns back around to see the Peacekeeper approaching her in a fight with the victor Valencia Shale, the Hunger Games victor knocking the gun out of the man's hand with the end of her blade, before slicing him straight through the stomach, entrails and pieces of intestines coating the linoleum floor in a magenta spread of offal before he collapses. However, Bloom's sight shifts past Valencia over to Ciphra, who is hiding underneath a desk with her hands over her ears, she in a fetal position, rocking back and forth. A sense of urgency builds in her throat, as beyond the chaos, more and more Peacekeepers are flooding into the two holes in the wall, everyone else either making a run for it or breaking for cover, as Valencia dodges just in the nick of time a spray of silver bullets and darts into the wall behind her. No one will notice Ciphra in the middle of all of this, and if she's left behind, she'll be killed, if Vanya is any indicator.

What would Mirek do in her position? She gave him the speech of a lifetime just a few days ago, and here she is, unable to save someone who everything rides upon. She heard the plan, just as everyone else had: she holds the key to the security system for the Mansion. If she is able to succeed, it will all rely on Ciphra's survival. She just can't let her _die. _Bloom feels the tension threaten to tear her arms apart, and at a distance, Rennie knocks Criston out of the way and into a locker as a Peacekeeper dives between them, holding onto a switchblade. He must not suspect Ponty to be near them too, as Ponty rips the fire extinguisher off of the wall and slams it into the Peacekeeper's visor, it cracking immediately with a hint of cardinal paint coating the chipped bits, and Ponty time and time again brings the fire extinguisher down onto the Peacekeeper's face, and she can see his mouth is open in a silent scream.

It feels all too real, her hands shaking in fear as she drops the shard of shrapnel to the ground, looking at the dead man on the ground. He's dead because of her, Bloom not even remembering when she had wrenched the piece of metal out of the man's throat, but she _did it. _She did it for her survival, doing her part, doing her difference... and it is her first kill. A sense of pride does not flow through her veins, after overhearing Aris and Jules talk about death and murder and what it felt to end someone else's life, Bloom vividly tasting in the back of her throat a sense of disgust, florid and alive in its rottenness. Bloom braces her body, rising to a crouching position that is horrible for her posture, and she runs by Valencia, who throws a brick in a different direction from her hiding space, and past Rennie and Criston who are forcing Ponty to stop slamming the fire extinguisher into the dead Peacekeeper's face. Before Bloom reaches Ciphra, just out of the corner of her eye she sees Criston taking Ponty - they're both from Six, after all, she realizes - down one of the hallways, the escape route. She still cannot see Cyril or Vivian, let alone hear anyone else over the drumming heartbeat roaring in her ears.

Bloom flattens herself onto the floor when a filing cabinet topples to the floor, scooting up some more so it doesn't land on her and trap her. She scoots up to the underside of the desk, and just barely over the din of other noise filling the air she can hear Ciphra's whimpers, she shaking and starting to cry. "Ciphra!" Bloom screams, holding out her hand, and the girl from Three blinks tears out of her eyes, dark hair blending in with the shadows. She shakes her head back at the girl from Twelve, almost so rapid fire that Bloom believes she might end up breaking her neck. "Ciphra, you gotta come out! We gotta run! If we stay, they'll kill us!" Why won't she come? Does she not realize it is literal life or death right about now, or has that idea totally skipped over her lately?

"No!" Ciphra screams back at her, Bloom almost recoiling from the violent outburst. Out of the corner of her eye, she can make out Vivian's flaming red hair, she loading an arrow into her bow, rising out of cover just to fall back under it again, Cyril approaching from the left side of the room, something glinting gold in his hand, but she has no idea where his sword ended up going. She diverts her attention back to Ciphra, who now is wiping snot from her nose. "I've seen you all die!" she cries out. "We all die here!"

She has no idea what she is talking about, and Bloom is not about to give up and wallow under a desk when she could be out there fighting. The key to their survival cannot hide away from everything. "Well, if I am going to die, I am going to be doing it standing on my own two feet!" she yells at Ciphra, and then grabbing her by the hands, which would be those covering her ears, she wrenches Ciphra out of her hiding place. Bloom has never seen someone pitch such a fit, Ciphra screaming and wailing in her grip, something about how everyone will die and that she needs to hide to save herself, Bloom debating for a split second on hitting her just to shut her up. She is not sure how many Peacekeepers are inside the ground floor of Command, or if there will be any more on the way, but she does not have time for this.

Rennie has come to her side now, silent and moving as quiet as a shadow. Bloom jolts in place somewhat, still shocked at seeing his bright red hair that Avoxes are so accustomed to have, instead of the blonde locks he had dyed while in hiding. Their leader only has to look at Bloom, to read the emotion in her eyes and the bloodshot vessels in them before he understands, scooping Ciphra up in his arms. "No!" Ciphra screams once again in protest, for sure getting the attention of a Peacekeeper. "I need to stay!"

"Get her out of here!" Bloom yells at Rennie, and without even a second thought, their Phoenix takes flight, holding onto his charge in his hands, before running down the same alleyway Criston and Ponty had escaped in. She watches the two vanish down the dimly lit hallways when another scream replaces the air, she whirling around and getting behind a turned over table to see Cyril pummel a soldier into the hologram table, slamming the man's face into the side of it, a cheekbone shattering from the force, but not before another Peacekeeper approaches the Career from the back, pressing the barrel up against his skull. Valencia is too far away from him to do anything, too far away from him to save Cyril, Bloom's fingers searching the ground for something, anything, _anything at all, _her hands coming up empty. What- what will she do? What can she do?

Vivian sees this, her loaded bow rising from the side and out of cover, she making her shot, but she's too late.

It is what Bloom always sees. Her being too late from everything.

Her warning leaves her lips far too late. Even when Vivian's arrow flies, she's missed it by a second.

Cyril turns around, eyes going wide, but it seals his fate. The fired bullet enters through his opened mouth, as if he were about to speak, and then out the back of his head.

"CYRIL!" Vivian yells his name, and Bloom's eyes go wide, her heart stopping in her chest.

"NO!" Bloom screams in anguish. Anguish, fury, and rage. Fire and blood, she needs to think about it in those terms.

Vivian screams again, a distorted cry of pain and agony, causing Valencia to whirl around, sword raised in the air to bring it down on another downed Peacekeeper who is already wounded in the shoulder. Bloom's body goes numb, a cold chill overtaking her. He's gone. Cyril Barther's gone, to join the other dead tributes rotting in the ground. There's a moment of stunned silence hanging in the air as Cyril breathes his last, looking at the Peacekeeper visor with a look of horror on his face, but it is the last thing he'll ever do, as he falls back against the hologram table which shows the entire Capitol in its blue daze, and when his body lands on it, the table projection turns off.

The arrow fired from Vivian's bow misses its mark by a landslide, the girl from Ten in shock to even move when the Peacekeeper simply aims his weapon at her instead. Bloom's eyes widen, she racing forward. Sage and Cambric died and she had been unable to do anything to save them, having been so far away in the first place, and she has no idea if Mirek is even alive, and to watch Vanya and Cyril both die in front of her very eyes... she doesn't even realize she's yelling until she's collided into the Peacekeeper's back, knocking him to the floor, her going with him.

"Go, Vivian!" she yells at her, the girl still unmoving, looking at Cyril's body with wide eyes. There are more Peacekeepers coming, however, as Bloom can hear their booted feet above them on the streets, and as talented at killing as Valencia is, she simply cannot kill them all. "Go with Valencia!" Bloom orders, a surge of pride flowing within her, while the Peacekeeper she knocked to the ground recovers, and she barely has time to dodge out of the way from him thrusting his weapon up in her direction, nearly knocking her out if the end of the rifle had struck her in the face.

Vivian is about to fire another arrow when there's another burst of bullets, two more occupants entering the room from the first hole that started this dance of hellfire and fury. Valencia, over in the corner, cuts through the throat of another man, she then tackled to the ground by a Peacekeeper who charges through the mist and fog, but unlike the others, he's not armed with a weapon. Bloom has only a few seconds to give attention to them before dodging out of the way once again, as the Peacekeeper abandoned the gun for a switchblade in his hands. She's lost track of where Vivian is, but she needs to flee... those who stay, they _die, _and Bloom has been anticipating death for quite some time, dancing with it every time she opened her mouth to protest the Capitol's fury and rage and mistreatment.

Bloom vaults over the holographic table, her hands slipping on Cyril and the dead Peacekeeper's blood while has spilled onto the shimmering surface, she collapsing unceremoniously onto the floor with another groan. Out of the corner of her eyes, in the distance, she sees Vivian stab an arrow into the side of the Peacekeeper's skull who had been advancing on Valencia, and then, with another shout of fury and order, she commands the two of them to leave. Rennie and Ponty and Ciphra and Criston are gone, and they need to leave too or they'll die... everyone will die before this rebellion is over, and she'd be damned...

The Peacekeeper with the switchblade rounds the table, diving at her with the blade, Bloom rolling out of the way. Near her is another misfired arrow from Vivian's quiver, she grabbing onto it with her right hand, almost slipping another puddle of blood. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see that Valencia and Vivian are no longer there. Good... they've listened to her, for once. Sitting there, with the radios and demanding that everyone in the districts are to fight back is met with silence, and the occasional blip of static that morphs into screaming, but it is nothing effective, and Bloom has no idea if what she's done has even made a dent in _anything. _

She manages to get a slice on the soldier, just by his ribcage, and a river of crimson splashes onto the ground. The Peacekeeper growls at her, having removed his helm, a shortly kept head of dark black hair surprising her in stunned silence. Bloom wants to say she recognizes the Peacekeeper. Is- is that Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro? How- what- how did they even- he...?

Bloom's next thought is unable to register in her head as his blade dives down and directly into her shoulder, slicing through the collarbone, and Bloom betrays every sense of structure in her body, crying out in pain and falling against the wall. It stings, even if it is just cutting into her clavicle, Bloom wrenching the knife out, gaze falling lax to the floor, and when she brings her eyes back up to center, all the water in her mouth dries up. It is not just Head Peacekeeper Lazarus standing in front of her, holding onto his rifle now, but an assortment of Peacekeepers, she pressed up against the wall, the water in mouth going dry. There's five of them now, and all of their weapons are trained on her.

It is how this all starts for her. She's sitting at home, spoon stirring through a mucky bowl of oatmeal - she doesn't even like oatmeal - when her father settles his water glass down on the counter, causing her to look up at him. "_You need to do something with your life," __he tells her, but Bloom scoffs it away, he taking the bowl from her. "No, Bloom, you aren't listening to me. Your mother is bedridden, and I am doing my best as an engineer, but one day it'll end up not being enough, and you'll need to support yourself too. I need you to do something."_

She meets Gaia Whisp, sweet twelve-year-old, recently left alone in this big bad world, and the rebellious nature in her flares to life.

Her father has done this, and she'll carry his legacy to her grave, on whoever she's ever inspired along the way.

What is the question Mirek had asked her on the train, when she sees the Capitol off in the distance, and how she'll burn it down to the ground. Rennie will do that. Valencia will do that. Ponty, Vivian, and whoever else is alive that isn't in the president's clutches will do that. But her time has come. What is it her district partner had asked her?

"_All this protesting, and you've never once been arrested or shot at or anything?_"

_With a cheeky smile, Bloom pushes back the curtains. "People have been firing at me for years, and they always seem to miss._"

None of the Peacekeepers miss this time, when Lazarus squeezes the trigger first, and she feels her body become riddled with bullet holes, the other Peacekeepers joining in the pursuit and the endeavor to bring down the revolutionary ticking timebomb. Bloom has no idea how many bullets hit her, whether it be just six or seven or upwards to fifty, but she can only feel the pain coursing through her veins, giving her the reason to keep on fighting, to take that next step, but her body will never be able to take another step.

She'll never cry out in defense of her dying brothers and sisters in arms.

Bloom's head hits the floor, her body giving out, but it seems to her that the bullets never stop flying, as she lays in a puddle of blood constantly streaming out of her in an endless stream. Her cheek is pressed up against the linoleum, it is such a cold taste in the back of her throat, the coldness and bitterness of blood and tile and the industrial bullet. Her gaze stays and rests on the exit that the surviving members of the rebellion escaped through, to burn down the Capitol another day.

"_Fly you fools,_" she thinks to herself. "_Fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly, fly..._"

Bloom Estrada crash lands.

* * *

**10th: Vanya Vasiliev, 17, District Eleven Male. Killed in the rebellion via explosion by a planted bomb. Created by TheMayflyProject. This was a character I debated on killing back and forth in my plans a lot, and I mean _a lot. _I loved Vanya, and while he didn't have the largest role in this story after being shot in the shoulder in Chapter 26, I grew attached to him very quickly and his intro I wrote for him is one of my top five intros I've written for a tribute, as Mayfly gave me such an expansive character, and he would've thrived in an arena setting too, as I would've had him reach the top two in one of my initial plans had I actually done an arena route. I never expected you guys to love him as much as I did, but I knew he'd die... that ring is a curse.**

**9th: Cyril Barther, 18, District One Male. Killed in the rebellion via shot in the face by a Peacekeeper. Created by thorne98. Oh... this hurt for me to do. In my initial planning of the story, in which I did have Cyril actually making it to the end, I have felt it better to have him die here. I found myself keeping him around and alive just cause I liked his character and thought he was well designed, and I think personally now, after debating it, I wanted him to go in this manner, this way, and it pains me to do it, cause this might be the only time I've ever done something like this before. I genuinely loved writing Cyril, and I wanted to give him a somewhat happy ending, but it came to me in the moment with Bloom's POV and I decided to make the decision. I am honestly crying, right now. Thank you Thorne, for such an incredible character. **

**8th: Bloom Estrada, 18, District Twelve Female. Killed in the rebellion via shot to death by Peacekeepers. Created by LordShiro. So far, Shiro, your characters have made top ten for my stories, so good track record! I understand Bloom had a lukewarm track record with most of you, given rebellion = D12 is often synonymous nowadays, but I genuinely loved writing her, even if her role was definitely kept in the background, but I still think she definitely had her moments to shine, and being the freedom fighter that she is, it only makes sense of me to have this be where her journey would end. She is a definite catalyst to several tributes, Mirek especially, which goes without saying, and to have a competent D12F who isn't immediately made a bloodbath in any Hunger Games story is always a plus. I'll miss you, Bloom.**

* * *

**_Tribute List (Boy - Girl)_**

District 1: **Satin Spinel **[_Submitted by Mistycharming_]

District 2: **Aris Lindel **[_Submitted by_ _grimbutnotalways_]

District 3: **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by_ _Flammifera_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by_ _Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara **[_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 10: **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by_ _SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

District 12: **Mirek Bosco **[_Submitted by_ _curiousclove_]

...

**_Capitol Cast of Characters_**

_President of Panem: _**Bonnie Rodney**

_Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: _**Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies: _**Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games: _**Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: _**Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: _**Hale Cornerstone**

_Victor of the 84th Hunger Games: _**Kevia Janelle**

_Head Gamemaker: _**Constantine Fallorne**

_Head Peacekeeper: _**Lazarus Pietro**

* * *

**Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #32: Do Or Die, for Bombs and Bullets, the last solely tribute focused chapter for the entire story actually. It took me a long time to write this chapter because of the extensive rewriting I did with Mirek and Vivian's POVs, and then when writing Bloom's today I had come to the decision to also kill off Cyril, who had initially in my head been surviving to the very bitter end. There are now only three, yes, _three _chapters left before the end of the Phoenix Rebellion, and then from #36-#38 we will be focused on the epilogue. So truthfully, six chapters before the end of the story, and holy shit we're so close! And we're almost at 300k too! That's insanity! We have a lot to do then, and we're now down to seven tributes. Who do you think will be surviving to the very bitter end? I wanted to hold onto this chapter for when I would have #33 finished, but after writing Bloom and Ponty today I knew I couldn't... I had to get this out for you guys. I will really miss Vanya, Cyril, and Bloom... cause damn, they were some special characters.**

**I will see you all before the end of the month with Chapter #33: Eden Isn't Real, another incredible chapter title given to me by thorne98, and it will be entirely from the Capitol character cast, as we're getting closer and closer to that finish line, and I can hardly contain my excitement. I am still writing intros for Liberty, trying my best to stockpile them too but I need to finish Bullets before I fully devote my attention to that story, as planning is constantly a revolving door with me there, haha. Reviews and your thoughts will be greatly appreciated, as support is always welcome! I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	33. Eden Isn't Real (Phoenix XI)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #33: Eden Isn't Real. Last chapter was the last chapter focusing solely on tribute perspectives, this chapter dealing with like the flip flop of the Capitol characters. Vanya, Cyril, and Bloom were killed in a Peacekeeper raid on the Underground Defense, the others have fled, and in a prison cell, Satin plots for freedom. We are just two chapters away ladies and gentlemen before the end of the Phoenix Rebellion, and the closer we get the more my heart continues to beat, and I cannot wait! I have a lot of stuff planned for these last few chapters and I hope you're all hooked into the ride with me to see it. Please enjoy Chapter #33: Eden Isn't Real.**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, do you ever question my motives? Do you not believe that I will bring you out of your torment from the Promised Land?_

**_Rennie Davis: Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion P.O.V_**

* * *

All he can see is red filling his ledger. Every emotion he can think of courses through his brain all at once, as if he's swallowed an euphoria pill and it dissolved directly into his bloodstream. He's unsure if anyone's exactly screaming or not, whether it be him or someone else in the tunnel, but he knows Ciphra has for sure stopped yelling, though he believed it would go on and on by then. His feet are killing him, pounding into the concrete floors of the maintenance tunnels. He has no idea if they're being followed or not, or what he'd do if they were being followed, but he can hear Pollux and Criston shouting at Ponty, for they're just ahead of him in the tunnel with Ciphra close behind. Screams that are not Ciphra's echo along the table, masculine ones which must mean dead Peacekeepers, but then something causes all of them to stop, a single loud gunshot, and then _Vivian._

"CYRIL!" her voice echoes along the chamber, causing Rennie to fall back against one of the tunnels. That's the Career kid who shook his head, who wanted revenge for his dead father... and if Vivian is yelling his name like that, it means only one thing.

Rennie bites down on his tongue, making a cooing noise in his throat, branchy thin hands going for Ciphra's shoulders to push her along. They cannot stay still, as staying still would kill them all. It is something Lewlyn tells him, once, when they're playing a game of poker. Her hands are holding onto the deck, before she picks out the Joker of Hearts - is that even the terminology? Rennie doesn't care what the hell the terminology is at this point, he couldn't care less - and flicks it back and forth in her fingers. It is after Valencia's victory, it is after Bonnie announces her pregnancy to the nation, and it is after his sister gives him the gift of a brand new violin. "_You stop dead, you die," _she tells him, with her curls resting on her shoulders, flicking the card back onto the table. "_If you stand still when the tide comes rushing towards you, it'll cast you out into the sea and out there you'll drown."_

He didn't understand what she meant then, not in the slightest, but he sees now. He sees the tide of Peacekeeper white rushing towards him, sneering and snarling and firing their weapons. Rennie places one hand at his side, at the backpack on his shoulders where he put the tablet. He cannot lose the tablet, and unfortunately, in his head, he can say that while he does not want there to be any loss of life, the tablet is more important than the lives. Words are the things people remember, and the actions that those words bring about. The truth he spills from its surface as he types away at the keys is the tide that will pull Bonnie out into the sea. She will not be holding onto a life vest, and he will be smiling, watching as she drowns. If that terrifies the other people who are his companions, so be it. They aren't the ones who've had their futures stolen away by her.

Pollux is yelling something at Rennie, but he can't quite hear it. Rennie cocks his head to the side, going to take a step forward towards him when there's another rapid spew of gunfire, and this time it sounds like a lot more than one gun. He whirls around on his heel, hands immediately going for his pocket, pulling out the firearm in his waistband. It isn't the initial weapon he had picked up the first time in the Underground Defense, this one belonging to a Peacekeeper; Rennie rips it out of the man's hand before slitting his throat. That knife, which he has cleaned, sticks out of his right pant leg some, he pulling it out as well. Pollux is screaming now, but he knows that his second-hand is still too scared to actually approach anything coming after them. Ciphra races to the end of the maintenance tunnel, climbing onto the ladder that heads back into the destroyed Capitol city, Ponty following after her, and then Criston.

Rennie can see a pair of shadows running along the far wall, he tightening his fingers around the grip. If it is anyone other than someone he trusts, he's taking the shot. He doesn't care if it is a single Peacekeeper or if there are a thousand of them; he'll fight and fight until every last drop of blood within him has been spilt and shed over this disgusting city. If only he still had his tongue, where he could yell out a warning cry at anyone who'd dare approach. The shadow edges closer and closer along the wall, he inching towards it, about to squeeze the trigger when he freezes in place.

It is Valencia holding onto Vivian's hand, dragging the girl from Ten along, the girl from Ten nearly fighting in the victor's grip, yelling incoherently about going back to save Cyril, but Rennie knows that the kid is gone. However, with a heavy heart as he counts the number of people running towards him, he sees it. There's no Bloom, Bloom Estrada, the girl from Twelve that snaps onto his radar because she fought for what she believed in without needing to stop or think about the consequences; she did it, and now she's died. She died for him. All of those tributes beside Ciphra who said they'd fight with him are gone, something he's done.

"Rennie!" Valencia yells at him, cradling a broken Vivian in her arms. The victor is covered in sweat, her long dark hair in a tangled mess against her shoulders, her sword slick with blood of dead men, of blind men who know nothing better than to follow a sheep who speaks in tongues. Vivian is silent next to her, holding onto her bow so ever lightly that it is almost falling out of her hand. "Rennie, we need to go! They aren't following us, but they might, and-"

He doesn't need to be told anything twice, simply gripping onto the gun even tighter while Valencia sheathed her sword. Rennie races over to the ladder, hoisting Vivian up who follows after him, the last couple of rungs starting to corrode away due to rust. They are not going the way they had come in, but down an auxiliary path, one that the Peacekeepers would not know about, and if Valencia did as she is instructed to do when they were to ever run down the hallway, knocking over a few bookshelves and bookcases would mean the Capitol dogs couldn't pursue. He lets Valencia go next, he having to duck under the sheath so it doesn't whack him in the head. With her slowly securing her way to the top, Pollux's worried face being what greets them above ground, Rennie looks behind him one last time, his heartbeat roaring in his chest.

The Underground Defense had been his home for two weeks almost, the amount of preparation he put into securing the place for those who wished to follow him to the grave... God, the horrid amount of cans of refried beans that he would eat cold with his bare hands, needing to find a running water tab underground without alerting Bonnie's presence aboveground... it is the place where his rebellion started - "_No, not my rebellion," _he thinks to himself for a moment, "_It is Panem's rebellion. It is my rebellion just as much as it is Pollux's, or the people from Eleven who died this afternoon to give me a few more hours to work..." _\- but it is not where the rebellion will be ended. It will not be snuffed out like one of Kevia's cigarettes, but a stoked fire with more torchwood added to it, where it'll consume the streets whole in a cleansing fire.

Rennie shakes his head in shame, just for a moment, then starting to climb. At the very top, Pollux grips onto his shoulders, hoisting him out of the sewer tunnel and onto more solid ground. The Avox holds himself there for a second, pressing his face into the concrete. He could feel the shaking tremors of the bomb still ripple through the ground, the same device that ends Vanya's life, has led to Cyril and Bloom's demise, but even then the bomb will only stoke and build to the fire. He will not choke on the smoke that comes from within, nor will he burst into tears even in the moments of solitude. These men and women, people he hardly knows for a lot of them, or those he's never met before, have sacrificed themselves for him and he is not about to dishonor their memory by giving up.

Looking at his last assorted group of rebels, there only being seven of them total together, including him, it is like he's a mother of a foolish flock of hens, Ciphra, Vivian, and Ponty all latching onto one another, Valencia locking eyes with Rennie, Criston's jaw locked and gaze fixated on the street, all while Pollux shivers, holding himself tight around the shoulders.

"What do we do now, Rennie?" Pollux asks.

He only has a smile as his response, motioning them to follow him.

The journey is uneventful, luckily, but for Rennie all he can think about or hear is Bloom's last words she might've ever uttered, telling Vanya to get away from the table. He cannot get his sister's face out of his head, when he sees her lying there at the morgue with the mortician, who zips up the white bag that'll ship her off to hell. Rennie loves his sister, but he knows that hell is where she'll end up. The coin had been flipped into the madness side of things too many times. She had looked peaceful, lying there, skin soaked and bleached, having gone as pale as chalk dust, with her lips devoid of all color, but he could hear her laughter in his head, and he's replayed said soundtrack over and over again while fighting in Gamemakers Square, no matter how many Peacekeepers he killed the message and mission stayed the same.

His sister did not deserve to die by her hand; all of this is for her, and all of it will be for her even when it is over.

Which is why he must do what he is about to do, Rennie realizing this as he inhales a deep breath, standing in front of the cream colored door that leads to Lewlyn's apartment. The lock had been easy to break into, as Vivian offers a hand for it, ducking and hiding from several Peacekeeper patrols, but even then as he presses his hand to the knob to turn it, Pollux places his hand on his shoulder.

"Rennie, are you sure this is a good idea?" the interviewer asks him, his eyes wide and filled with fright.

All he can do is nod. He believes he's lost the energy for something like this, to respond.

"We have to, Mr. Aetos," Ciphra argues back with him, the girl having slowly started to recover from her frayed nerves.

"But this is Constantine's apartment! The same lady who tried to kill you, and you, and you," Pollux points at the gathered tributes, Vivian and Ponty looking at one another when they're selected. "I think it's a bad idea."

"But you heard Ciphra's plan," Criston buts in, gently, but still butting in all the same. "There's only one computer strong enough in the city that isn't under control by Bonnie in the mansion or by Constantine herself in the Gamemaker Center, but here," he nods at the door. "Rennie, open it."

There is only one spot in the Capitol left for him to be able to do this. Part of him wants to send the others back, but there's nowhere else for them to go, and so they stick with him. This is it, his sister's apartment. The very same tub inside that she died in when Bonnie slit her throat open from ear to ear. The same room where he's found himself taped to a chair, forced to watch reaping after reaping. This is the room where she gives him the violin as a gift, the very violin he smashes into bits and pieces on the ground after her death. It is the apartment where she fights for him, going toe to toe against Pollux on a lie that Rennie himself built, a lie he has never apologized for. And that bitch of a woman, that Constantine Fallorne, she simply moves right in as it is where the 'Head Gamemaker must stay'.

When he's finished with Bonnie and Lazarus and their motley crew, he'll enjoy strangling the old crone with her own guts, and he'll do it himself.

Rennie takes a deep breath, holding onto the latch, about to turn it down.

There's a click just a few doors down that causes him to stop, for it is not his own hand that made the noise, and the door to the apartment is still shut. He freezes in place, everyone else tensing behind him as well. They've had to climb six floors to reach this one, and they hadn't made a single sound; Rennie is sure he didn't even breathe. However, as he can see Ponty mutter an '_oh shit,_' under his breath, or Valencia swear - he should've never doubted her, she's proven herself ten times over at this point - and lightly place a hand on the hilt of her sword, he finally looks over too.

It is late outside, just around eight or so now, the sun starting to sink beneath the sky, and it might be the reason why the woman standing just in front of her door, hair in curlers, some sort of goopy face mask dripping onto the floor, is out of her room. He looks at her, and she looks at him, eyes appraising over the gathered group. There is no way she doesn't recognize them, from the way their faces are plastered over every billboard in the city, the tributes as well... but maybe, just maybe there's a chance...?

The woman opens and shuts her mouth several times before pointing a finger out at them, nails freshly done as well. An auburn color, like his hair, the hair he brought back to normal.

"You... you're Rennie Davis and-"

Something inside him snaps. Rennie has no idea what it is, or if he is able to find it again, but it doesn't matter. The woman sealed her fate.

All she had to do was not open her stupid _fucking _mouth.

Rennie's hand goes straight to his gun, he pulling it out as quick as he could.

Without hesitating, the avox and leader of the Phoenix Rebellion fired two shots into her heart.

* * *

**_Kevia Janelle: Victor of the 84th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

She swears she can hear the screams of the dead echoing in her ears. The soles of her feet are killing her, Kevia holding out a hand onto Hale's shoulder so she can take a breather and pause, rubbing the sore tendon with her right hand, balancing on her left. The sky is a mixture of hazy pinks and sulfurous reds, columns of black smoke rising higher and higher still into the sky as the sun starts to sink down beneath the horizon, and all the living bodies with it. Every step she takes, it feels like the world is pulling her down with it, the blade and gun in her pockets becoming heavier and heavier the further she advances, and although she's cried all the tears she could ever muster in one sitting, Kevia wishes to cry. Her only desire now is to break down and sob, but if she cries, she knows Hale will cry too.

The journey has been slow, dipping in and out of alleyways and hiding in the first floor lobbies of several buildings in their trek, getting away from the high rise apartment that must have Hector's corpse left behind. Kevia foolishly believes, for at least ten minutes, that Hector will come back and join them, but it is Hale's quick gasp as they climb up a fire escape to another apartment building that causes the victor from One to stop in her tracks. Following her companion's line of sight, pointing for good measure, she sees it, the building they had come from, that beautiful apartment, covered in some sort of green smoke, like a fog spilling out of every known vent and smokestack, and her heart falls. Nothing in the world is ever that color if it doesn't speak to something about toxins.

Kevia loves toxins, but seeing the sky turn into that congealed olive color, she knows. Hector Merviere is not coming back, him staying behind is his death and his demise, but Kevia is unable to cry about, where she even forces herself to try, but nothing happens, just a resigned sigh. Looking at Hale, her face has gone entirely cold and unemotional, simply sniffling away at some sort of thing she's inhaled, before turning to face the fire escape steps, Kevia fearing she might just hop over and crash her head onto the pavement, but that does not happen. Kevia likes - _liked, Kev, he's dead now, talk about him in the past _\- him as much as she liked Arizona, which safely had to be not very much, but she liked the older brother more than the younger at the very fact that he didn't seem to be as excitable or reckless or headstrong, compared to Arizona's whims and fancies at the very least.

She loves toxins, however, thinking about the fumes that spiral into the sky. Kevia's always been known to inject toxins into her body, from really craving a martini, or even a cigarette at this point, realizing with shocking clarity that she hasn't smoked in _months, _the last cigarette she can recall having being one with Lance out in the mansion's gardens where Calhoun is still alive - "_You murdered him!" _her inner voice shouts at her, full of rage and pain and bitterness and sour acid between the teeth, "_You're the reason all of this has happened! Bonnie only got to kill her husband through you!" _\- and Lance tells her off, even though she finds herself running back to his bedroom in the training center after Valencia's victory, latching her lips onto his.

It is the fumes that gets her to move around in a haphazard motion, where she climbs the Victors Village fence to get the Peacekeeper rifles trained on her body, or to sit with Lance in his bathtub and see if his body still kept the scars from his last fight, to even swallowing a bite of salad with Bonnie at her table. Volunteering for the Games is a toxic element unlike all the others she's ever been in, but Kevia is incapable of imagining a future without that course in her life. What other paths would there be for her if she hadn't volunteered for the 84th Games? If she hadn't drove her knife into the male from Two's trachea, would she be rotting in the ground like poor Hector who is decomposing into the carpet? Kevia wants to imagine she'd be happy, being a normal girl and simply existing in Panem, but she knows that's foolish of her to believe. No one simply 'exists' in Panem, ever.

After recovering from her need to stop, Hale herself rests on the side of one of the buildings, some small maintenance shed with a lock on the door, and Kevia is not about to start firing her gun off in the middle of the crowded streets. She finds it eerily strange that, besides a few occasional Peacekeeper patrols here and there where she's mastered the art of holding her breath, there isn't a single, and she means _single _Capitol citizen walking about. Three days ago, when she's brought to kneel in front of Bonnie and the others, and when Rennie detonates the bomb that he throws towards the gathered group, the Capitol died, having been electric and alive just a few hours earlier after the Interviews ended, where Kevia sees Pollux trying to hold himself together knowing that it all would be over in an instant.

What had she been doing in those moments before it all ended? She remembers having a drink and being the one to look at how Cyril and Satin are coming along in getting dressed, since Cyril's father had been passed out in one of the upper VIP sections of the theater as to not attract any unwanted attention, and when Cyril is finished, she sends him on his merry way, but she doesn't feel like stopping by Satin's room. If she saw herself in Valencia back then, when she's still her mentor, it is a major difference when she sees Satin, essentially a girl that used to be Kevia, albeit slightly nicer, and Kevia realizes that she didn't even want to be in the same room with her, her skin starting to itch simply thinking about it, her skin itching again as she rethinks it.

Just another few yards away is one of the back buildings to the mansion, Kevia's heartbeat roaring in her chest at the realization that she's just maybe a quarter mile away from Bonnie and Lazarus and Constantine and who knows who else inside that building, but she knows even moreso that Hale is only a quarter mile away from her children. Children she hasn't seen in what must feel like an eternity, Kevia smiling at the fact despite her nerves being shot. Hale sighs rather exaggeratedly, wiping some sweat away from her forehead that is streaming down, Kevia looking at her with a solid gaze. To think she hated this woman for simply existing, although maybe she had actually been a bit of twat - Kevia would prefer to use a more vulgar cuss word, containing the letter C, but she figures Hale would actually yell at her about that - so some of it is warranted.

"I can't take another step..." Hale exhales, holding a hand to her chest, scooting down and pressing herself up against the stone wall of the maintenance shed.

Kevia slides down with her, to hide herself from the line of sight. There's nothing she can do about her blonde hair, something she's constantly cussed to herself about on the two day trek across the Capitol, which shouldn't even be taking this long given the city isn't _that _gigantic, but at also everyone's journeys. Is everyone dead? Are they the only two alive? She knows that deep down, no matter how that battle at Gamemakers Square would end, Lance, if alive, would come looking for her, his promise to her after they first kissed under the creaking eaves of her front door all those years ago. Would Lance be inside the holding cells with Hale's kids tomorrow morning? She wants to see him again, to see and feel a friendly face that wouldn't try to bite her head off after a moment of time, but she'd probably deserve a bitch slap.

"_You murdered Calhoun! You murdered everyone!" _her mind roars at her again, as Kevia presses herself up against the wall, mirroring Hale. She blanches momentarily, biting down on her tongue to stifle a response back, but it'd only weird Hale out if she were to do so. "I know that the back entrance is passcode protected and also needs a Peacekeeper ID to access it," Hale looks over at her, expression saying, '_Gee, would've been nice to know that earlier'_, but Kevia holds back another side remark. "We can break a window if you'd like, or wait for the next Peacekeeper patrol," as she says this, her left hand falls to the knife she brought with her, the handle sticking out of its scabbard against her thigh, Hale's eyes lingering on the weapon, a smoldering mountaintop blowing ash to the trees.

"We smash something, they'll hear us. We'll have to simply wait," she says, resting her face up against the brick, which must not be very sanitary as Kevia winces, closing her eyes. Kevia cannot believe that Hale Cornerstone of all women, of all people, is willing to wait an extra moment to see her kids, but she realizes that neither one of them have gotten time to mourn Hector, that Kevia's own breaths have all been shallow, none of them deep inhales to settle the tiredness back into her veins. "They're resilient, and they can hold on..."

Kevia wraps a lock of hair around her finger, staying silent, while Hale whispers and murmurs on about her kids. Stories of every kind of importance that there is to be had is shared, such as when Arianne eats a sunflower thinking it'd grow one out of her ears, or when Hector and Elias build a house of cards and Arizona bowls straight through them with a cook book after failing at baking a cake, it being for one of the upcoming victory tours of the latest Hunger Games victor. There's Elias losing his first tooth, and the mayor of District Ten, a very nice and respectable man that Kevia has met before, doing a whole song and dance about someone called the Tooth Fairy, though Kevia isn't sure who that imaginary person is. Through all these stories, she can see the happiness on Hale's face, where even speaking about Arizona does nothing to dampen her spirits, but inside her own heart, inside the woman from One, she's a collapsed puddle of tears.

She has caused all of this; she's done _all of this, _and none of them have ever deserved it.

What is she doing now, if not fighting for all of those she's wronged in the past?

Kevia doesn't quite know what it is that washes over her, whether it be guilt or remorse or doubt or something worse than that, but she scoffs to herself, causing Hale's head to perk up slightly from the wall. "You know something, Hale?"

"What?" the victor from Two asks her, dredges of sleepiness dragging her voice into a slur, almost.

"I envied and hated you from the beginning," she says, but there's a snarky tone to it, like she's smirking. Hale is, for sure. "I wanted your life. Your husband, your kids..." she holds out a hand, spreading her fingers, but Kevia is looking past them and through the windows they create, the windows of opportunity and sadness. "I wanted to know how you could walk around in the Capitol breaking so many rules, living so dangerously on the edge, acting like you weren't bothered by the lives you took in the arena from those helpless kids... and how you weren't bothered by training kids to be like us..." Kevia takes a deep breath, sighing, a weight of relief rising off of her shoulders.

"Just because I didn't act like it doesn't mean I wasn't feeling anything, Kev," Hale says back, the victor from One tugging her left side of her mouth a bit higher into a smirk. Only Lance has ever called her 'Kev', but Hale is doing... does that mean something? Are they closer than enemies, or at best, two neutral parties wishing to not be in each other's presence?

"I wanted to be you more than you can ever imagine," Kevia continues, closing her eyes for a second. She's never told another soul this, where Lance is rubbing soothing circles into her back the vault of secrets do not open, just her counting her prayers and blessings and holding her virtues tight to her body. "I think that's why I stole things from people; if I couldn't be like you, I could steal from others, maybe."

The other victor barks a harsh laugh, much louder than the distilled quiet surrounding the vicinity, but Kevia doesn't hush her. "I think you just like stealing things, Kevia. You might be a kleptomaniac, you know," Hale quips back, almost teasingly.

"Maybe." Kevia cracks a grin.

Hale sits up some more, pinching the bridge of her nose, holding out a hand and waving it back and forth some. "Wait a minute. You and I had lunch like every day during the Games for like... seven arenas straight, and for all that time you just hated being around me?"

There's no point in lying, as she's signed her early death wish, and all Kevia can do is smile once again. "Yeah."

"Bitch," Hale snipes back, but there's a total bough of humor following the statement, and the woman bursts out into laughter again, doubling over herself, placing a hand on her stomach to keep the burn from getting too strong. Kevia can only shake her head back and forth, keeping her grin, but she doesn't say anything.

At first, at least, just holding onto a single fact, a single question she's wanted to ask this entire time, but with Hector with them, something she can't necessarily bring herself to debate against with his inclusion. She licks her lips, swallowing heavily, unable to look directly at Hale, but looking past her, at the back door to the building they're going to infiltrate tomorrow morning should all things go as considered. "Hale, do you forgive me?"

The other victor looks at her, a shock running through Kevia's system, Hale Cornerstone staring at her, face expressionless, but she can see the emotion of pity shining in her dark eyes. "Yes," Hale says, without hesitation.

Kevia doesn't know how to respond, almost more in a stunned belief as a cold shaw embraces her body, a chill shaking her synapses awake.

Hale forgives her, for all the wrongs she's done.

Kevia can only hope that before she goes she can ask for Bonnie's forgiveness, for the woman she's lied to. For Valencia's forgiveness, for the girl she's supposed to protect. For Lance's forgiveness, for the man she's supposed to love. For Arizona's forgiveness, for the man's life she destroyed and uprooted with a single stroke of the pen.

For her own forgiveness, for the woman she's drifted away from, if only she knew how to ask herself what forgiving herself meant.

* * *

**_Lazarus Pietro: Head Peacekeeper P.O.V_**

* * *

The world is starting to turn to his favor. No one can see him smiling, but he is, living in every moment that is being injected into his bloodstream, the happiness that is flowing through his body. He presses the pistol that he had brought with him to infiltrate the Underground Defense, as he hears several of the rebels call it, back into its holster, some of the gray paint dotted with flecks of red in on the barrel, and whenever he touches the barrel, some of it gets onto his white gloves. Lazarus turns his glove over to face him, peering at it through the visor, a dark lens blotting out the sun while he stares at the crimson specks. It is blood, but it is not the blood of teenagers he killed, or of the other few adults in the room that hadn't managed to slip out of his fingers, but the blood of rebels. Rebels who've defiled the work of a queen, of a visionary who'd lead the Panemian people out of a horrible darkness.

He could only give so many chances to those who've strayed, like a shepherd who watches certain lambs walk away from the rest of the pack; Lazarus can only exert so much effort and force into going after them before he eventually gives up and has them devoured by lions. Lazarus is the sole occupant of the elevator he is currently in, going through one of the side doors of the mansion that has not collapsed from the Avox's bomb all that time ago, when it reality it had only been three days ago. In the matter of a whole day, he's set carnage ablaze in Gamemakers Square, recovered for a brief time, and then invaded the base of the rebel operation, and it still isn't entirely dark out yet. He grins to himself again; only a mastermind with come up with an intelligent plan like that, and it is one that is all his, the president has had nothing to do with it.

Speaking of the woman, Lazarus has not heard a single directive from Bonnie since the morning, and it had been his plan to sneak back into the base, not hers as is, he having forgotten what it is exactly she had wanted him to do. She might be needing rest, but Lazarus knows it is more than that, deep down, she's just not telling him. It is of no matter, for he simply rests his head on the back of the elevator, popping open the flap that covers the back of his skull, resting said area on one particular metal bar in particular. It is the coldest spot in the slate cube anyways, as he's tested each of them out by pressing his gloved hands against them on the many times he's taken trips up and down the shaft. He's worked for his relaxation all day, and he's lost count exactly of how many people he's killed today.

He didn't recognize the face of the girl he shot, back there in the maintenance tunnels, nor of the guy he shot through the mouth, but he recognizes the kid who is killed by the initial explosion, it being the same tribute he asks another operative of his to assassinate on the morning after the beginning fallout... Lazarus scoffs to himself at the notion that anyone else would be able to do his job. None of them are him, and no one is more efficient than he is at killing, or keeping the cities of the Capitol safe. The kid has performed for him before, when he's made sure Bonnie and Calhoun were kept safe, away from citizens willing to steal a brooch or the lady for the evening, but even then Lazarus hates watching Vanya Vasiliev perform like the preened peacock he thinks he is. The kid had risen above his station, for the highest station afforded to a district citizen is a victor, and the kid liked to believe he had risen higher than a victor. While the Head Peacekeeper had never spoken to him face to face, he could see it in the boy's eyes, glistening pride that made Lazarus want to vomit.

The elevator arrives on the last floor, to his own Underground Defense as Lazarus calls it, a gust of chilled air hitting him in the face as he takes off his visor. There's still the night shift to conduct, and some last minute orders he'll need to make, but for the most part, Lazarus is going to take it easy and relax. There's hardly anyone in the room, either preparing for the changing of the guard, asleep, or out on patrol chasing after the remnants of the rebel army that did not surrender or die in the ending of the battle, but Lazarus knows exactly who will be waiting for him, like expectant children. Standing at the command table, both actually dressed out of Peacekeeper gear for the evening, which makes Lazarus raise an eyebrow, are the tributes Aris Lindel and Amaris O'Hara.

The doors close behind him as Lazarus steps into the room, the sound causing both tributes to look up. Aris's face brightens in elation, eyebrows lifted, eyes twinkling, hands rising to a curved stance near his ribcage, but Lazarus also notices Amaris and the way her jaw tightens. He's unsure if there's an emotional change in her demeanor beyond that, but it is as if the girl's body became a statue by the way she stiffens, hands tightening on the edge of the table. He makes his way over to them, setting his helmet down on an extended lip, prying his gloves off. His skin is starting to itch, not having taken off a single part of his uniform in a couple of hours, and he can only imagine the stench. Well, rather he _can, _for Lazarus knows that warfare has a certain aroma to it that is more than spilled blood or the smell of napalm killing his nostrils, but that of fear, and fear has always tasted like tea, milk, and honey on his tongue.

A moment of silence passes across the table for a moment, it being Aris to venture forth and shatter it. "How did it go?" he asks expectantly, eyes flickering over Lazarus's uniform, which has spoils of war plastered all over it.

Lazarus takes off the second glove, plopping it onto the table. "As well as it could've gone. Three tributes are now dead, and by my hand alone, I've scattered them to the winds."

Both tributes lock eyes with one another for a second, and while Lazarus can expect the emotion in Aris's eyes to be that of glee and joy, he is stunned by the sadness that permeates from Amaris's expression. Perhaps the two of them believe they aren't being watched, but that is the secret of the Capitol; someone is always watching, and usually it has been him in times past. "Who were they?" Amaris asks, a hand digging into one pf the creases on the table, fingernails scratching at the wood. It looks like she bites them, from the way the skin is torn to shreds, and the nails gone, shaved down like someone's hacked at them with a blade. She doesn't look at him, her gaze steady with the hologram of the Capitol that flickers every few seconds.

He almost laughs, _almost. _"I don't know their names, but they were still dressed in their tribute uniforms. Boy from Eleven was killed by a bomb I detonated, I shot the boy from One in the mouth, and the girl from Twelve died fighting," Lazarus says rather matter-of-fact, tapping his fingers which each kill. The two of them, Aris and Amaris, share another look.

"Vanya," Amaris counts out loud, holding out a finger, "Bloom," Another finger. "And Cyril," she says with finality, and with all three names Lazarus can see her shoulders deflate every few seconds.

"Good targets," Aris mutters into his sleeve, wiping at his nose, but Lazarus notes that he isn't looking at him either. Everyone simply avoiding eye contact with him, and if he were given the chance, he'd find it, he'd rip it out of their throats with their last dying breath.

The girl from Six tosses her fellow tribute a dirty look, nostrils flaring slightly. "_Aris_," she hisses at him. Lazarus makes a cooing noise in his throat, clicking his tongue against the side of his mouth. He had been like her once, a person unable to see the sight of blood, one who'd faint hearing of the deadly and brutal methods of how a prisoner in the Capitol's care could die when left unattended, but then they were beaten out of him, the nonsense, all of it gone and eradicated with a single slap to the face.

He rose into his station, but not above it.

"And the rebels? The victors?" Aris asks, this time turning to the Head Peacekeeper, he nodding in approval. The boy is smart, always deferring to his leaders and his elders, those who have the wisdom in their actions, not petulant children who need to be held and fed and coddled when they make a mistake. He could make a fine Head Peacekeeper one day, Lazarus notes. When all of this ends, and his position is secure, he'll make sure to go forward and tell Bonnie to let Aris become his successor. Hard bred loyalty is something he's finding less and less of nowadays, especially when he looks at Amaris.

He pockets both of his gloves, fingers still itching at the contact of sweaty leather, wandering over to the sink stuck in the side of the far left wall, turning on the faucet. A cold stream hits his hands, his exposed palms twitching slightly, before splashing his face with the water. "Fled, but that doesn't mean I won't find them or that Bonnie is just going to let them escape justice," He rips a paper towel off of a rack, wiping his face, turning to both of them, smiling widely. "Today, in one single day, we've destroyed their entire cause, killed many of the tributes they were trying to save, and have scattered their remaining forces across the city. Those that haven't surrendered will be killed, and it'll be glorious."

That is the word he's been trying to find.

Glorious.

It is glorious hearing Vanya scream in his last moments, it is glorious listening to the girl from Ten, the one with the red hair, crying out the boy's name he killed. It is the most amazing spectacle, for Lazarus, to witness the light go out of Bloom's eyes when she realizes she's all alone, and more glorious still when her body falls silent, having passed on to the ninth realm of hell where she could freeze for all eternity.

"That is what tomorrow will be for, then? Hunting the rest of them down?" Aris follows up with another question, rubbing his chin. Patches of facial hair are starting to come in, just in patches, Lazarus having half the mind to tell him to just shave it off, or maybe throw him in a cell for unkempt appearances. It is not the first time someone's been put in a cell for an outlandish reason.

"Yes and no," Lazarus opens the trash can next to him, throwing away the paper towel.

"Yes and no?" Amaris frowns, dragging her hands off of the table and to her sides. When the Head Peacekeeper looks at her, her brow is furrowed together. "What do you mean?"

"I have a special assignment for the two of you, effectively starting tomorrow morning," Lazarus says, triumph and pride filling his voice, and once again, the two tributes look at each other. "About a half mile from here there's a building that acts as a makeshift prison for Capitol citizens," Aris raises an eyebrow at that statement. "While our city is clearly much better than the districts you come from, it is not to say we do not have our thieves, our homeless, our beggars and our miscreants. We usually put them together in a building, should they not be important enough for a cell down here in the mansion, or if we believe they need a trial..." Lazarus cannot help but smirk. The Capitol is the greatest city that ever is or ever would be, but even then, they still have their own faults. "Lately, we've been filling up the cells with alleged rebel supporters or sympathizers."

"How many?" comes Aris again, voice piqued with curiosity.

"800."

"Eight- _eight hundred?_" Amaris is the one to speak this time, and her eyes widen, like she needs to take a step back for a second.

Lazarus's voice is icy cold, he locking his jaw and not breaking eye contact with her. "I never said our city was perfect."

"What are we to do down there?" Aris palms his legs, rubbing them down the fabric several times, as if he is unable to stand still from the jumpy way he shifts on leg to leg. The intensity he had seen in the kid from the battle has dwindled, to a calmness that Lazarus has never seen the tribute exhibit before. Perhaps it only shows in bloodshed, perhaps, perhaps.

"Normally, as it is not the first time we've done this, the people would be all interrogated and then further decisions made, but I know that we do not have the time to interrogate all eight hundred of them. Among those in the group, we also found another two tributes like you, Satin Spinel from One and Mirek Bosco from Twelve," Lazarus hangs on the two names for emphasis. Mirek Bosco is stupid enough to show his hand, and he tells others to find Satin Spinel based on a helpful tip from Constantine. "We cannot let these prisoners simply take away from the act of finding and killing the last few rebels in the Capitol, which is why you two will be useful," he pauses once more, rubbing his middle fingers over the balls of his thumbs on both hands. An order like this, an executive order like the one he's going to give them... he might've pissed himself on the spot if he were in their shoes. "You're going to go down there and execute them all via firing squad," A dark cloud hangs over the table, both tributes' facial expressions falling. "No one is interrogated, simply killed. It is something we can do, given the fact they're alleged traitors."

"Is- is this President Rodney's orders?" Amaris asks, her voice barely rising above a whisper.

"They're mine," Lazarus lifts his head up some, blue eyes shining brightly.

This is the sin of man, the sin he must commit, where to save a future heading for incineration, he must sacrifice a few lives on the way.

"Kill them, Sir? All of them?" There's almost a hint of panic in Aris's voice, the Career balancing nervously from foot to foot several times before deciding to rest on the table instead, turning his back to Lazarus.

"Treason is not a light accusation tossed around in the Capitol, Mr. Lindel," the Head Peacekeeper simply glares into the kid's back with a solid stare, but Amaris is now looking dead at him, but he's unable to read her face. "You will be put in charge of this operation, do you understand me?"

"Yes sir," the two of them reply in an instant.

"Good. I want the two of you to go to bed early, for you'll need it in the morning, as when you're finished, you'll be aiding me in flushing out whatever rats are still left here. Soldier Lindel, you are free to go, but Soldier O'Hara, I would like to speak with you for a moment," Lazarus orders, stepping back up to the table. While Aris shows enthusiasm and is a very good prospect for a real Peacekeeper in the future, he is not a hired one like Soldier O'Hara, the thorn in his side he'd forever thought would be useful.

He'll never forget the moment when Rodric Oxford hangs, and Amaris O'Hara is incapable of keeping her eyes open. Perhaps she is not as bloodthirsty and ruthless after all like she claims to be.

"Night, Amaris," Aris says, slinking away from the table as quick as he can, his body seemingly deflated as he trudges off, but Lazarus keeps his eye on the other occupant at the table.

"You too..." she responds, but then without another moments hesitation, she is standing in front of Lazarus intently waiting for orders, even doing so with a salute, he nodding away for an 'at ease'. "Yes, Sir?" she asks him, voice expectant and full of hope, but is not a hope he's ever heard.

Watching her rise and fall over and over again brings him joy, but he's not sure why.

"I am once again putting you in charge of this operation, Amaris," he places a hand against the side of her face, and to her credit, she does not flinch. "I want them all dead, not a single survivor. Do you understand me?" She simply nods her head in assent. "I like you; I like your ambition, but I do not like your inability to follow orders. You've already failed me once in securing the tributes that were down in the sewers, and while bringing back Mr. Lacey proved to be a significant advantage, it still wasn't my goal," he leaves his hand resting on the side of her face, almost daring himself to go even higher to the point where one of his fingers would be just barely away from her eyes, but Lazarus leaves his hand in place. "President Rodney told me that you also hesitated in killing him this morning, that it required you being ordered to do so before you saved her," He brushes one finger across Amaris's cheeks, and this time her confidence wavers as her gaze falls to the floor. "I am not offering you a third chance, Soldier O'Hara. If you fail at this, the firing squad have orders to shoot you too," he tells her. "Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes."

"Yes?" Lazarus raises an eyebrow.

Kings must be respected, kings only. Queens do not deserve respect once they've failed so many times.

"Yes, _sir,_" Amaris says, and she takes a step back, out of his grasp, where Lazarus closes his hand around the cold air.

"Good. Get some sleep, Amaris," With the nod of his head, he turns away from her, not caring whether she goes or stays. "You'll need it."

All of Panem will need it when he's through, as Lazarus Pietro is through of giving people first and second chances. He does not do third chances.

He will never do third chances.

* * *

**_Valencia Shale: Victor of the 100th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

Once she's seen a single drop of blood, she's seen it all. It all looks the same, no matter whose body it comes spilling out of, and she's seen her own split blood plenty of times before. It is something strange to her, knowing that fact, such as when Peri slices her axe down at her, or when she's falling over a puddle of Maisey's life essence on the linoleum floor, covered in it from head to toe, crying, all the crying... and that is not the Valencia Shale way. However, despite being desensitized to it - God, what a horrible thing to say, she realizes, with a pang - is that seeing Rennie shoot the Capitolite in the head without hesitation shocks her, to where she's unable to look at the puddle that blooms on the floor. The body is hidden in one of Constantine's closets, a closet that must've just been built after she moved in as Rennie recalls there being a solid wall there beforehand. Every so often Criston or Pollux will stick their heads out to check the hallway, to see if there's anyone else coming out to see what is going on, but so far there's been no one, luckily. For their luck, Valencia hopes the others simply believe it is Peacekeeper business and it is left like that.

They haven't as so much as turned a water faucet on or anything other than opening the blinds while sitting in the apartment, and she can hear stomachs growling over in the corner, where the tributes all gather. Criston and Rennie are over at Constantine's table, erected where Valencia believes a couch would've gone, but they're simply examining the surface, the laptop of the District Six victor held under his arm. Valencia looks over at the Master of Ceremonies, he checking out the blinds over and over again, almost to the point of obsession. She holds her tongue despite wishing to say something, Valencia wanting to say a lot of things, actually, but she can feel her entire body shaking as she tries to close her eyes. Closing her eyes is dangerous nowadays, for Valencia doesn't know which face she'll see. It might be of the girl back home that she bashes into a cafeteria table, skull smashed in, or of Persephone with her sweet smile, or the precious Hero smiling at her with a torn open throat, or of Seth Cables, whose body she sees burn and ignite like he had been gunpowder... and her last words to him were ones of coldness and anger.

Valencia looks at the tributes again, lips pursed, as it is Vivian and Ciphra sitting next to each other, most likely never sharing a single word to each other before, but both girls are resting their heads against the other, and there are tears in Vivian's eyes. Tears that Valencia sees in her own reflection, but Ciphra has gone silent, like Ponty, who simply looks like he's fuming, chomping down on his thumb every once in awhile, occasionally rocking back and forth like he's about to say something, but he never does. That picture is wrong, the picture she sees. She might've not been able to save Sage, Cambric, Seth, or any of the others on the battlefield, but the ones they've just lost: Cyril, Bloom, Vanya... they should be here, in a potentially more dangerous spot than anywhere else in the Capitol.

Cyril is gone, another moment that has Valencia rest her head back, sighing softly as she closes her eyes. Although he had been her competition, and Satin too, for they being the same age, she knew him. Not very close, but enough to know he has potential to volunteer for the 101st Games as he does, and she knows - _knew, _Val, it's _knew _\- his father too, a man she never liked, but she liked Cyril, who tried stepping out of the shadows to only be burnt or mocked or ridiculed or any somesuch other injustices or cruelties. And he died, and she saw the man who did it... Lazarus Pietro, Bonnie's lackey. Ponty swears by every holy book he can name that he saw the Head Peacekeeper place the remote bomb on the table that ripped Vanya into bits and pieces, but had been exhausted and didn't say anything. She reads the guilt on his face.

The plan is simple now. It is to kill every single motherfucker involved in the Rodney Administration, all the bad seeds rotting the full apple tree barrel, and Valencia wants another excuse to cut open Peacekeepers too, frankly, she wouldn't be against it at all. With Ciphra's help, alongside Criston's tutelage, the files for the mansion's security will be disabled after they're deleted separately of everything else, and that'll turn off all the security cameras in the half mile radius of the mansion, as well as unlock all the doors and who knows what else, and that is when Rennie will make an all call for everyone to flock towards the mansion, and he'll separate the serpent's head from the rest of the viper's body. Lazarus will meet his end as well, Valencia claiming she'd make the kill herself, for he spilled District One blood, he deserves to die a death she would've given Marcus back in the arena had she ever been able to get her hands on him.

Rennie shouldn't have killed the woman, she might've been entirely innocent, but Valencia won't know about it now, as she looks over at him, the ex-Avox turning away from the console, a frustrated expression on his face. She's put all her faith in him, and it truthfully hasn't led to the biggest fruition possible, but she can't hold it against him, for just a year ago he had been in an abusive relationship with his sister who had been forcing him into depraved sexual acts... what would Lewlyn say about all of this? She didn't know the former Head Gamemaker all too well, simply seeing her from afar, and at first wanting to impress her even after her victorship, a silly concept since she had already _won. _Would Lewlyn be happy about Rennie's direction? Would she be angry about Const-

The sudden thought causes Valencia to widen her eyes, biting down harshly on her tongue, she seeing more of that familiar red flash before her very eyes.

Tomorrow, the Phoenix Rebellion will, if all things are to go as planned, eradicate Bonnie and Lazarus off the face of Panem, and hopefully with that action, bring all the Peacekeepers to heel. The two tributes with them, Aris and Amaris, are ordered to not be targeted and brought under their protection, a deal that when said makes all three tributes yell foul: they'd rather see Amaris and Aris be strung up by their feet with hooks in their Achilles at the entrance to the city than let to live, but one quick glare from Rennie and a stern cough from Pollux has them silenced well enough. They'll cross that bridge when they get there, should they have to. Satin and Mirek are also important, and Rennie will try to get in touch with Hector, Kevia, Hale, and Lance, anyone who'll listen to him, to go and rescue them, a priority as well. However, that does not cover all their bases for Constantine-

Constantine is still in the Gamemaker Center, and who knows what she's even doing.

"Rennie," Valencia says suddenly, sitting straight up, catching his attention. He turns around to face her, a few others also piquing their interest, the victor waving him over. His face is paler than normal, his hair returned to the that bright auburn color - there once had been a vibrant boy and girl with auburn hair together, before one got a knife shoved into their heart and an axe in her head, she's seen the clip over and over, unable to stop replaying it with a morbid curiosity as she watches the downfall of District 7 play out before her very eyes - but his eyes are dark, dark with disquiet and maybe even disgust, though she's not sure for what. He sits down next to her, one arm resting on the windowsill, basking his arm in a line of shadow, for the sun is starting to set down. "We have a problem."

He must've left his tablet elsewhere, back at base maybe, a thought that saddens her for some reason, as Rennie signs his statement back at her. "_What do you mean?_"

"Constantine," and she sees the way he falls back some, slightly resigned. A player he must've not even considered. Valencia struggles to get to her feet, holding onto the scabbard that holds her sword, the sword she never used in the arena for a kill has been putting the work in during the rebellion, but even there she fails, as she's killed no name soldiers, soldiers whose deaths do not matter in the grand scheme of things, fodder where she'll never learn their names, but Valencia imagines that it is the Career aspect working at her, for it is the sole piece of advice Kevia's ever given her that she's tried to follow... "_Try not to give them names, Valencia, for it'll only make the guilt worse..."_ her mind fills in the blanks, and she recalls frowning at that time too, sixteen then and a lot less prepared, but she knows she hadn't ever been prepared. "_Why would I be guilty?"_

_Kevia's eyes are unforgiving, but not because she's upset or disappointed. She feels pity. "You sweet child, I pray you'll never know what I mean._"

Back in the present, however, it is Rennie's arm on her shoulder that jolts her out of place, she looking back over at him, as he's looking back at her. "_Valencia, what do you mean?_"

The last time she had actually spoken to the woman had been during the Private Sessions, and that had only been three, maybe four days ago, but it is how the conversation goes that terrifies her, picking up on details that shouldn't matter or wouldn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but they do here. "We haven't seen her since this all began. No mutts during the Gamemakers Square battle, but we know she released mutts after Vivian and her group," she points over at the girl from Ten, who has curled up in on herself to sleep, as it is starting to get really late now, and Criston is debating on turning a light on. "She's probably holed herself up in the Gamemaker Center simply seeing everything, and who knows if she's actually been helping Bonnie..." that is a thought that doesn't occur to her, on if Constantine has been helping them, but it's something the woman says in their hour and a half conversation that has her pause... the woman loving chaos. "Rennie, it doesn't matter if we kill Bonnie and Lazarus and the Peacekeepers... it'll all be for naught if Constantine is still alive at the end of all of this."

Rennie raises his head, flatlining his lips, Valencia terrified of some prospect that he'll say no. "_You want to go and kill her, don't you?_"

She wouldn't necessarily say that, but Valencia does find herself nodding. "She wanted to show me something called the Mutt Tunnels, something I'm sure you know about with Lewlyn," at the name of his sister, Rennie looks away, his lips twitching, and she can see him silently shake, whether it be out of fury or sadness, she cannot tell. "I've had this feeling in my stomach that she is going to try something, and again, she's too dangerous to be left alive..." she pauses, closing her eyes. "I can't leave now, I know, and it means that everyone has either abandoned the cause or died..." She knows that when Kevia, Hale, and Hector left, it means they must've gone for Hale's children, and she's not to say she doesn't understand where the victor from Two is coming from, but Rennie _needs _them and they're gone. She has no idea what to think or feel about in regards to Lance vanishing off the streets of the Capitol, but she has a hunch. If Valencia is to do this, she'll be another name to tack onto the list. He'd need her when he rushes the mansion, she might be the most valuable asset he's got after all. "She told me once how big of a fan she was of me... maybe there's a way I can trick or fool her into thinking I'm on their side and wanted to change teams," she shrugs her shoulders. "It has to be worth a shot."

His eyes are forgiving when she looks at him, entirely different than the murderous rage she sees when looking at him after he fires the gun off at the dead woman rotting away in the closet, somehow not starting to stink. She can only wonder on what is going on inside his head, but she does not envy him or his position. In war, sacrifices must be made, but at what point does one say it is enough when the sacrifice could end up being themselves? Valencia will not entertain that thought, and she'll keep on letting it rot away for eternity.

Rennie's response is quick, but that it is all it needs to be. Criston had tested her back in her glass house, which surely has been destroyed in the midst of all this, that he needed to see her loyalties, to test if she had still been that Capitol dog he must've believed her to be, and Valencia knows now, deep down, she's proven herself, and this'll be the final test. If it all goes wrong, she can only imagine what the fallout will be. "_Go,_" is his response, his gaze solid, and he looks at her, steel in his eyes, courage flowing through her veins.

She couldn't save Persephone from burning up to the realms of Hell. She couldn't save from Milor from self-destructing on himself. She couldn't save Peri from the madness that consumes her as she bears the axe blade down. She couldn't save Arizona Merviere as he's pushed in front of the train. She couldn't save Sage, Cambric, or Seth when the Capitol war machine bore down on them. She couldn't save Cyril when Lazarus pressed the barrel of the gun against the back of his head. Valencia has failed to protect those she swore she'd keep safe.

No longer.

Valencia is not going to fail; she is going to save Panem, and all who live in it.

* * *

**_Tribute List (Boy - Girl)_**

District 1: **Satin Spinel **[_Submitted by Mistycharming_]

District 2: **Aris Lindel **[_Submitted by grimbutnotalways_]

District 3: **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara **[_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 10: **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

District 12: **Mirek Bosco **[_Submitted by curiousclove_]

...

_**Capitol Cast of Characters**_

_President of Panem: _**Bonnie Rodney**

_Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: _**Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies: _**Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games: _**Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: _**Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: _**Kevia Janelle**

_Head Gamemaker:_ **Constantine Fallorne**

_Head Peacekeeper: _**Lazarus Pietro**

* * *

**So there we are ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #33: Eden Isn't Real! And wow, what a ride it has been, and what more of a ride we still have to go. So, in short essence, this is immediately fallout from the end of the last chapter. Rennie has done not the unthinkable, but a question I know a lot of you were wondering about in terms of his development, Kevia and Hale have reached their destination but it doesn't mean the fairytale will end well, Lazarus has given Amaris and Aris new orders effectively placed immediately, and Valencia has realized what she must do... and we've still got two more chapters left to go, ladies and gentlemen.**

**Also, as a quick note, we've officially crossed the 300k word count border, woohoo! Second SYOT of mine to breach that number, and ironically both SYOTs in Slaughterverse are over 300k for word count; will I be able to have a word count larger than Slaughter's? Most likely not, but I can certainly try.**

**I am very, very excited to get there, and I hope you are too! Next chapter, #34: On the Devil's Doorstep, will be a mix of two tribute POVs and three Capitol character POVs as we're winding down to the end and there doesn't really seem to me feel a warrant or need to keep the two separate any longer with things being so tightly knit. I am very excited for it, however, as with this chapter complete, there are just two more chapters left to go before the Phoenix Rebellion has its end... any predictions? I'd love to know your thoughts and what you think might be the end fates of all the characters still left alive. Your support matters a whole lot, so thank you for it. I will see you all again soon! I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	34. On the Devil's Doorstep (Phoenix XII)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #34: On the Devil's Doorstep. We are, ladies and gentlemen, at the deep breath before the plunge - if you know which movie that references and the character that says it, kudos! - as there's just one last chapter before the Phoenix Rebellion comes to a head and meets its end, there being two chapters of chaos left. Last time, Rennie brought the surviving members of the Rebellion to Constantine's apartment and killed an innocent to keep themselves safe, Kevia and Hale have made it to the other side of the mansion, Lazarus has given Aris and Amaris one last order, and Valencia has a mission... we're almost there. This chapter is a mix of three Capitol character POVs and two tributes - Satin and Mirek - and then it is off to the finale. Your support on this story has been immense and incredible, and I thank you for it. For those who keep track of where your characters are and whatnot, officially we are on Day 4 of the rebellion. Please enjoy Chapter #34: On the Devil's Doorstep.**

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_~ And so sayeth the Lord, I will bring many of you to the Promised Land, but I never said who will get to go... just that you, as a whole, will indeed one day get there._

**_Criston Pellock: Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

Valencia leaves early in the morning, just when the hints of sunlight are starting to rise over the horizon. When Criston asks where she went, directing the question to Rennie, he only gets a shrug as an answer, and when pressed further, a '_she is keeping us safe' _as his only other known answer. It is bullshit, honestly, at times, Criston wanting to shout at their fearless leader and get into his face, but it is hard to have an argument with someone who cannot shout back. He had been too involved in looking over the console with Ciphra to notice the conversation that Rennie had been having with the Quarter Quell victor, but he supposes it doesn't matter anymore... he's still not sure if he is going to be one of the people charging into the mansion with Rennie when it comes time for it.

So far the alleyways and the streets have been quiet, no one has stopped by to make sure everything's okay, and no one has asked or checked out the dead woman hiding in the closet. Criston watches Rennie's face as closely as he can without ever actually looking at the body, for he swears he will never look another corpse again, and there is a look of pure shock on the Avox's face, and then he looks over at the gun, throwing it down onto the ground and kicking it away from him, a reaction Criston does not expect. He understands that while he'll never physically be fighting, for that time in his life has passed the moment he becomes a Hunger Games victor at such a young age, he'll never raise a knife or a sword or a gun or anything like that to anyone ever again. There is a weapon on him now, and he'll never forget how heavy it feels on his body, weighing him down like he's walking in a suit of bricks.

He decides to forego helping Pollux and Ponty move the dead body down the stairs and into the outside dumpster - what a horrible way for someone to be buried, but Rennie swears on his life that the woman will be given a proper burial when the devil is eradicated off the face of the Earth - and eventually the Master of Ceremonies decides to step away from the ordeal, Ponty's facial expression that of disbelief at the idea that he'll be carrying a corpse down several flights of stairs all by himself. In the end, Vivian and Valencia both offer their help too, and when they came back up, Criston sees in his tribute's eyes a reflective mist staring back at him. _Tears. _He never expected Ponty to be able show emotion in that regard, the kid always striking him as egotistical and a socialite, one who wouldn't cry with a stubbed toe sort of deal.

The conversation he had with Lance all those nights ago, what felt like eons ago when it all truth it had been just a week ago, quite literally a week, at how wrong he is about Ponty. He had told him that he believed his tributes to be too far gone. He has no idea about Amaris, truthfully, there being disturbing reports of her leading Peacekeeper raids, and by Vivian and Ponty's own mouths, she's the one who led a raid down in the sewers, which is how the group had gotten separated and sent into Constantine's personal hell, with vampire mutts and glowing red eyes... a shiver slides down Criston's back simply thinking about it. He doesn't want to see anyone from District 6 die, but he knows that if Amaris does not willingly surrender when Rennie plans to storm the Capitol, she'll have to die, and that is a conversation he's regretting even thinking about.

However, that is not his concern, in this moment and time while he checks the blinds to the outside once again. The city streets are silent, there is not a soul outside, and the eeriness of it has finally started to sink into his head. He blips the blinds back shut, turning around to face the living room. Oddly enough, as he sees Rennie at night walking around the pieces of furniture, touching them with his bare hands, that Constantine hadn't changed the layout of the apartment from when Lewlyn owned it just a short time ago... she kept it the same, he seeing bursts of anger radiate across his face in short waves, controlled waves of rage. The couch and coffee table have been pushed back, and with some rummaging into a closet, Pollux finds a handheld camera, one good enough to do the job that is necessary.

Rennie's dressed finely in an old Avox uniform - Criston dares not ask why it had been in Lewlyn's bedroom closet, but he figures that there's no need to actually ask, the writing is already on the wall at this point - for the sake of just the video, and then he'll dress out into his combat uniform, a grunge shirt and dark pants, he deciding to forego the belt. Ciphra, over in the corner, as his - Criston's - laptop, fingers typing away at the keys in rapid-fire succession, importing the files necessary for the shutdown of the Capitol mainframe onto Constantine's personal server, that causing beads of sweat to trickle down his head. It is not as if Constantine will be unaware that someone is now in her apartment, but it has him worried that no one has shown up to take them, if she even knows at all. It has been set up perfectly, gears and machinations going off in Rennie's head to the point where Criston can see dark smoke pouring out of his ears.

Pollux is finely dressed however, his apartment just a few floors down, a dangerous move as Rennie doesn't want anyone jumping ship and running the risk of getting spotted, but Criston knows that Pollux wouldn't do that. He's dressed in the same attire he had worn for Interview Night, just hours before everything went up and boomed, but that had been all Rennie in the first place. Criston rubs his fingers together, frowning to himself. The day Rennie had personally delivered the order he needed in designing the bomb, simply dubbed 'Ignition Package' in the label, is a day Criston will never forget, nor the sandy feel of the parchment on his hands... the ominous feel in his heart as he hands it to Lance, knowing that the victor from District One will certainly keep to his word.

He shakes his head, blinking away a few black spots of stress appearing in the corner of his vision as he stands just beside Pollux, the interviewer balancing the camera on the stick also kept away in the closet. Rennie stands in the center of the room, hands folded in front of him, his tablet, resting just by his feet face up. Also gathered in the other side of the room, both Ponty and Vivian were dressed, weapons in their hands taken from the Training Center. Criston briefly locks gazes with the girl from Ten, the sides of her face and eyes still slightly puffy from crying, but he can only imagine what it meant to lose so many of her friends in such a short period of time... he hadn't made any relationships with any of the tributes during his games. Pollux mutters something under his breath, before sticking his head to the side, looking at Rennie.

"You ready?" he asks.

Rennie simply gives a thumbs up, nodding. Criston pats his palms down the front of his pants, his fingers starting to sweat, his clothes starting to stick to his skin. He looks over at Ciphra, a smile crossing across his face. "Connect us through, Ciphra." The girl from Three nods at the order, swiping through a menu, plugging in one cable to the side of the console that Constantine has built into the far wall closest to the bedroom and bathroom - "_The bathroom where this all started,_" Criston realizes with stark immediacy, another chill shocking his synapses awake - and then, after a few seconds, a video tab with Rennie's face loads onto the server. The moment Ciphra were to hit send, it'd funnel straight to every computer in the Capitol, one where Bonnie will be watching. Criston waits for the green light to appear down one of the cords slithering on the floor, and when it does, his smile widens. "Go ahead, Rennie."

The leader of the revolution, hair bright and flaming to signify his oppression, simply picks up the tablet lying next to him. Once a tool Bonnie had given him so he could express his mind where spoken words would always fail him, it is now the constructive tool he uses to dismantle Panemian society floorboard by floorboard. "_Hello, Bonnie,_" he types out, before backing out of it. It is not a conversation where Rennie constantly needs to go back and type his next sentences, but screenshots that he simply swipes through. "_I suppose I don't need an introduction, but I hope this war has been keeping you in good health," _he even smirks a little, a hint of humor rising on Rennie's face. Criston notices, out of the corner of his eye, that Vivian has an arrow drawn, she turning to face the door. Ever the Tigress to lash out at unsuspecting prey. "_This is not a surrender video, nor do I wish to express any sentiment that the Phoenix has burnt away into nothing," _Rennie swipes to the next picture, "_This is simply me reaching out to warn you... I, and everyone else you have oppressed or destroyed, and those you'd wish to keep under a regime ruled by terror, are coming from you. In an hour, I will meet you on the balcony of the Mansion, and we will end this, whether you like it or not._"

Rennie has done his part, however, for he steps out of frame and Pollux fills the void instead. Criston lifts his arms up some from his sides, seeing that they're shaking. What Rennie has done is irreversible, and they cannot remain a moment longer than necessary before the world and all of its hellfire and ichor spouts rain down upon them.

Pollux waits for Rennie to completely off camera, and then the Master of Ceremonies simply picks the camera up off of the stand, holding it in his hands. "This is not a negotiation, Madam President," the interviewer's face grows into a full blown smile, a full blown smirk. Criston takes a step away from the center of the room, going to the far wall by the front door and flicking a light switch. For what comes next, if there ever is a _comes next,_ should Bonnie kill them all. "We will see you in an hour, well, Rennie will see you in an hour, and you will surrender..." Pollux grips the sides of the camera even tighter, bringing it extremely close to his face, "Or we will burn the entire city down to the ground to make sure we succeed. I hope this message reaches you in good health; the Phoenixes will see you in an hour."

He drops the camera down onto the floor from his height, not even watching it fall as he ends the recording, the camera shattering as it hits the tile. "Send it, Ciphra," Criston orders immediately, the girl from Three hitting send. Should all things go as planned, the recording will be hitting ever mainframe computer in the Capitol system within seconds, and that means there's no turning back, just from the way Criston's shoulders deflate, stress pinning him down to the floor. Being a victor meant he is supposed to rest out all of his remaining days in luxury, instead of constantly looking over his shoulder to make sure, during an insurrection, that there aren't mobs of Peacekeepers chasing him with their weapons trained on him.

A silence passes over the apartment for a moment, Criston stepping forward to pick up the shattered camera, Ponty breaking the silence. "What do we do now?"

"We can't just wait," Vivian adds, keeping her bow loaded, but she does not tighten on the bowstring. "We need a plan."

"_We have one," _Rennie signs over in her direction, but he is still holding onto his tablet just in case. A look of impasse crosses over the Avox's face. "_I gave Bonnie the terms; I'm going to head over to the mansion now. When you get the signal, you'll know what to do. You're going to shut off the power, which will allow us to infiltrate whatever buildings we want," _he looks at his assorted followers, melancholy replacing the look of impasse, his eyebrows falling down after being piqued up some. "_I cannot ask you to follow me, as you have followed me this far, and I cannot have done any of this without you." _

"You- you're telling us not to join you?" Pollux croaks on a bubble of surprise in his throat, hurt flickering across his face. "Rennie, you can't go in there alone! It's like you'd be walking into the lion's den!"

"_I need you to stay behind and make sure that no one gets into the console," _Rennie's eyebrows furrow together, a burning fire igniting in his eyes, blue and ferocious. Criston has to give it to their leader, he has always had the scariest of glares and stares. "_I must do this alone. With just me, Bonnie will fall back into thinking she can reason with me, and if she thinks she's got the higher ground, I automatically win._"

Back in their corner, out of the corner of his eye, Criston can see Ponty and Vivian murmuring something to each other, and then, with a nod, Ponty turns to face them. "Mr. Davis, sir... we're coming with you."

He has no idea why, but Criston is the one to face them, eyebrows rising up in surprise. "No! Absolutely not."

Vivian tilts her head to the side, bright hair ferocious against the gray paint of the walls. "Are you going to try and stop us?" she asks, her voice cold as ice. She turns her attention to Rennie, putting the arrow in the bow back into her quiver, tightening the strap that goes around her chest. "When all of this madness started, Ponty, Cyril, Jason, Anahita, and Maren decided to follow me because they trusted me... Cyril, in the sewers, realized that Bonnie had killed his father, and he wanted revenge. He wanted to kill her, and we took a vote," she looks back at Ponty, locking her jaw. "It was unanimous... we were going to go and kill the president, since she tried to kill all of us with the tracker trick, and the Training Center," she looks back at Rennie. "Those monsters killed Jason. They killed Anahita and Maren. They killed Cyril," her voice cracks for a second, a syllable getting stuck in her throat. "I am not, _we _are not going to simply stand by. We're going, and you're going to need our help."

Rennie looks down at his feet, closing his eyes for a moment. They have no time to waste, and all of this arguing is simply wasting time. Criston's gaze keeps flitting back and forth to the door and the center of the room, Ciphra biting on her cuticles nervously, resting up against the console. After a moment, Rennie nods his head, hands going to his waistband. He tucks his shirt in some more, Criston catching the dark paint of a gun in a holster, and the silver gleam of a knife. He is not going to Bonnie to negotiate or have her surrender... he's going to the mountaintop, ascending like Moses with the Ten Commandments, to kill her. To kill the Queen, to kill God.

Ponty tightens the grip on his hammer, matching step for step with Vivian. "If what you said is true, we don't want to be late. Vivian and I have expected to die multiple times over since all of this began, and we're not afraid of it," he lifts his head up some, eyes glinting in defiance. "_I _am not afraid of it, either."

The Avox runs a hand through his hair, looking over at Pollux, the interviewer nodding his head. "_You know what to do?"_

"We do," Pollux smiles back, half heartedly. "Have faith in us, Rennie."

"I won't let you down, Mr. Davis," Ciphra says, her jaw locking as well, tone dancing dangerously as singing steel. "She killed Tach. I haven't forgotten that, and I don't want her to forget that either."

Criston inhales a shaky breath, his entire body trembling, as Rennie closes his eyes once more, and without another word, Vivian and Ponty following him, the trio exits the apartment, the door slamming shut behind them, and to fill the void, all Criston can hear in his head is the sound of his heartbeat roaring over and over and over.

Alongside his heartbeat, Rennie and Pollux's message repeating over in a cycle.

_We're coming for you. _

_We will burn this entire city down to the ground to get what we want._

Criston smirks to himself, going to stand in front of the console, the files displayed from his computer flashing in holographic pixels, he running his fingers along the sides, the metal cool to the touch. Pollux and Ciphra join him, he hearing their heavy breathing over the echo of his heartbeat. "And we will..." he whispers, to no one in particular. "This city will burn..."

* * *

**_Satin Spinel: District 1 Female P.O.V (18)_**

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There can be no mistakes made today. The girl who has been formed by the Spinel legacy of gems and obsidian and kissing of family members has capitulated in today, in this very moment, in this morning where her entire being will made by up... it has all boiled down to this. Satin Spinel cannot fail. Satin Spinel _will _not fail. Sleeping on the stone slab that is to act as her bed while the Capitol skyline bleeds and burns has her awake all night, eyes boring into the ceiling with such ferocity that Satin imagines she could create a hole into the sky, a beacon shining with the glow of lava, to signal that her rage is something that will not be passed up on or scoffed at. Her wrath has never been exercised, not after all the shit she's been through to die in the corner of a city that is much worse than it appears to be.

The plans have been drawn into motion, it requiring Mirek to kill a rat with his bare hands, and the acknowledgement that he will listen to everything she says, for it all must go by the book at how she wants it done or it'll mean the death of them all. It is impossible to get her to talk to anyone else in the other cells, though their cries for mercy and the begging to be released as her rolling her eyes. The people that live in this accursed city are so stupid, as if the Peacekeepers were going to listen to them in the first place. She has half the mind to sit up and rattle her knuckles on the bars, screaming at them to be quiet, but they wouldn't listen to her either. For this to work, she needs to trust that the stupid incompetence of the Capitol, and the gullibility of those she's surrounded with, most of it resting on Mirek's shoulders.

She and Mirek are awoken at near the crack of dawn by a Peacekeeper sloshing their breakfast through the gaps of the cell doors, a slushy gray thing in a bowl that smells of rat droppings, Satin gagging at the smell. Even with her mother dropping all of their funds into buying more of the 'good' white powder, she's never had to eaten something like this before, staring at Mirek who digs the spoon into the muck, eating it up, although he doesn't look pleased at the fact, it is the principle that he is ingesting the stuff to begin with. Another Peacekeeper comes by five minutes later to snatch the bowl away from them, some of it splashing onto her legs, she sneering at the smell that hits her nose, wiping it away with her hand, smearing her hand on the wall, as if anyone were to notice the sludge blend in with the harsh gray there at all.

However, as the Peacekeeper watches her do this, he speaks to them behind his helmet, Mirek seizing her by the shoulder, forcing her to still. "You and the rest of these gutter rats will be getting out of here soon," the Peacekeeper tells them, but he leaves it at that, moving onto the next cell to take the sloppy bowls from whoever occupies them. She and Mirek share a passing glance, he nodding his head, pointing down to under his rock slab that counted as a bed, where the dead rat is, pink tail twitching in the air, Satin swearing that she can hear a fly buzzing above its head. Somehow, despite the prudishness she senses off of Mirek, as he is not as low and common as he'd like to have her believe, grabbing a dead animal by its body is not a problem for him, and according to him, the reason he gets an eight in the private sessions is because he kills a rabbit with a pickaxe, a shudder passing through Satin's body.

Something about killing a teenager just like herself is different than slaughtering a helpless animal that did nothing to deserve its fate. "_But what did those other tributes do to you?_" the voice in her head asks her, the voice sounding like Cyril, pointed and antagonistic as he always seemed to be in training. "Nothing..." she whispers to herself, nails digging into her arm so she does not bite her tongue off, grimacing. "They just got in the way..." Mirek flashes her a look, Satin not realizing that she had spoken out loud, she getting jostled to the side some by another Capitol citizen standing next to her. Satin struggles to push through the crowd so she and Mirek could get to the fringes of it. He is gripping the dead rat in his hand, it sticking halfway out of his pocket and in his grip, a bit of vomit rising in her throat before she swallows it back down.

The things people do for her, don't they?

A few hours after the mush is thrown onto her body, the same Peacekeeper returns, by the cadence of his voice, telling them to get up. There are several other guards with him, Satin swallowing her fear and desire to fight back, for she does not want another electric shock to ripple through her body; it is has been through enough at this point. Neither one of them are handcuffed or bound in any way, but Satin realizes that it won't matter, given that they're the last two to actually be pulled from their cells. Every other Capitol citizen stuck in the prison with them is on the ground floor, dressed in whatever clothes they had been taken from, and from what she can see, none of them have bathed, but neither as she, her body starting to itch. They're marched down the end staircase, put into the back of the pile, with Peacekeepers standing at the back exit, and if Mirek stands on the tips of his toes, he can see that there are Peacekeepers at the entrance too, along with a microphone.

It is also Mirek that pushes them to the near front, just between a quarter of the fill and to the middle, where Satin feels like she cannot breathe, the amount of perfume and leather choking her, but if she presses herself into Mirek, then she'll inhale his sweat and the thought of that makes her gag again. However, it has been about ten minutes since they were taken from the cell, and still nothing has happened. Satin keeps on looking back behind her to see the Peacekeepers. She's never trusted them, even back home. She knows she had no reason to dislike them, living in One, hearing the horror stories from Mirek about the brutality of living in District Twelve, where even Twelve has always been lax, but after Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch, the tensions rose into the air... she could only imagine what it must've been like to live in places like Six, Eight, or Eleven, where it felt like every day her boyfriend - turned out to be cousin, Satin vomiting at the thought - would tell her of a new riot happening there cause the Peacekeepers were a bit too trigger happy.

Looking at the guards posted at the exits, she hopes to any sort of holy being above that none of them are trigger happy here.

She goes to say something to Mirek when two Peacekeepers step up to the microphone, removing their helmets, but then another Capitol citizen moves their cashmere coat above their head, blocking her view. Some jarring sounds of static ripple through the air, causing her to cover her ears. When she lowers them, she can hear someone speaking on the other end, her eyes widening, she getting as far to the side as she can, Mirek following her. "Mirek... is... is that _Amaris?_" she asks in disbelief, and then watches as the two Peacekeepers standing at the front of the crowd, near the closest exit doors take off their helmets, she nearly falling over at the sight of both Aris Lindel and Amaris O'Hara in Peacekeeper uniforms. What... what _were they doing here? _Her heartbeat begins to beat faster in her chest; this is not something she had been expecting to happen in the slightest, this is a wrench in the Spinel plan.

"Citizens," Aris takes over the microphone, seemingly wrestling it out of Amaris's group. "President Bonnie and Head Peacekeeper Pietro apologize for how the conditions and situations have been these last few days," to which the crowd gives a few jeers back towards him, but most of the sound and support is actually peaceful, with many professing that they are in the Capitol's good graces. "We're simply going to go by and ask you a few questions, so please, do not get all acted up..."

Satin's breathing continues to pick up speed, she noticing for the first time in a long while that she's actually sweating, unable to catch her breath. "Mirek... Mirek, Mirek," she clamors, hands going to drag down at his shirt. She's always been calm, she's always been composed, but seeing her, _seeing him _up there... Satin couldn't see anything other than the blinding white of their uniforms. "Mirek, they can't see us. If they see us..."

He simply nods his head, closing his eyes. They both know what must be done. "Then we can't waste a single second."

She has no idea exactly what it is that comes over her, but Satin reaches out and grabs Mirek's hand in hers, clutching it tight to her chest. He parts his lips in surprise, but she rests his hand on her chest just over her heartbeat, letting him feel the drumming under her skin. He looks at her, eyes wide, but she even takes a step closer to him, all the other noise in the world drowning out so all she can hear is her heartbeat and his breathing. "Please, Mirek," she says, and although she exhausted any potential tears back up in the apartment with Cyril drinking on the floor, Satin can feel the phantom-like quality of tears slide down her face.

Mirek removes her grip, he locking his jaw, digging into his pocket, and throwing the dead rat in the corner. She does not watch where it falls, and she's made sure that she is grabbing his clean hand, not the one picking the vermin up by its tail, before he squeezes his hand back in hers, nodding. Though he doesn't say anything out loud, she sees it in his eyes. Who would have ever guessed that the person she'd be closest to in all of this is a guy from Twelve, and not her own district flesh and blood? Satin watches as Mirek surges forward into the crowd some more, Amaris back at the microphone, but she's drowned out whatever it is she's saying, rolling her eyes at the sight. Of course the girl would be there, of course she would be... by principle or some bullshit rule like that.

"_It is principle that all of your friends deserted you back home, Satin," _the inner voice in her head tells her, Satin locking her jaw, hissing at herself to shut up. Then, looking over at the rat, she unleashes a scream, falling back onto her hands. A few of the Capitol citizens around her look over at her, as she falls back and screams once more. "Mutt! It's a mutt!" kicking her legs back some, she kicks a bit too hard, clenching her teeth together, trying to keep a panicked expression on her face.

"That's not a mutt, you stupid girl," an older man tells her, but she shakes her head back and forth.

"No, I swear! It's going to devour us and-" she wants to continue babbling, to continue freaking out. She's always been told by everyone how good of an actor she is, where she's able to bewitch whomever she wants to, but as she continues shaking her head back and forth, pointing at the dead rat in a panic, no one even bats another eye at her. She gets to her feet, backing up into another Capitol citizen who shrugs her off rather rudely, the crowd starting to inch forward as she can see Amaris take the stand again, calling a few people forward. In front of her, Mirek pauses his wading through the crowd to look back at her, she locking eyes with him, and any sort of brightness in his gaze dies down immediately at her facial expression.

_Satin backs up against the leather couch of the holding room, as her 'father' advances into the room. This is the man who abandoned her and her mother, while her mother collapses into a fantasy world of white powder. "You've always been an amazing actress, Satin," he tells her, holding an arm out towards her as he steps closer to her._

_She pushes the chair she had been sitting in to the front of her, to block her away from him. "Get away from me," she hisses at him, blonde hair tied into a ponytail as it hits her neck. "You do not get to talk to me or use that name!"_

Satin falls to the ground, someone having pushed her, she falling really damn close to that rat, the Career bracing herself from coming in contact with it, she hearing Mirek shout her name, but she also hears something else... and that is Amaris's voice, sounding extremely sad. "And we are sorry, ladies and gentlemen, for what we are about to do. Please... please forgive us, as these are just orders," and the girl sounds close to crying, an emotion Satin never expects her to have in her register.

The entire world explodes in a spray of silver bullets, blood, and ichor, the golden river of the Gods. Satin closes her eyes, clamping her hands over her ears as the pops of gunfire echo against the walls, the sound of dying Capitol citizens and their bodies hitting the floor. Satin doesn't dare stand back up, the girl lifting her head up some to see that Mirek is no longer standing there in front of her, but she ducks her head again as she watches the old man who told her off get struck in the head, brain matter flying out through the entry hole and exit hole, he standing in place and flopping dead for a second.

She squeezes her eyes shut again. There is no Cyril to call for, Mirek must've abandoned her, and whatever plan she's wanted to do is thrown out the window by this... she goes to cry out Mirek's name when Satin opens her eyes, seeing a tide fall of people rushing towards her, and then her entire body is screaming in pain. A fleeing Capitol citizen rushes towards her, most likely not even seeing her when their booted right foot comes smashing down onto her hand, she crying out in agony as when the boot leaves, another coming down on her body immediately after that. A burst of red floods her vision, Satin screaming as loud as she can before wrenching her hand back, fingers definitely broken and bent out of shape, pain flowing through her body, hot tears spilling down her cheeks.

She tries getting to her feet, another few panicked citizens knocking into her, causing her to fall down, her left hand being the one to get crushed this time, but she has hardly enough time to process it when someone's foot hits her in the head. "No! Please stop!" she yells out. "Someone help me!" Satin screams, but to no avail, as there's another spray of silver bullets, and more bodies to add to the pile, many occupants in the crowd trying to overwhelm past the other guards in place at the other exit, one Peacekeeper getting hoisted into the crowd and slammed into a pillar, his visor cracking open and his head following with it like an egg, blood spilling onto the concrete.

_Her father, her alleged father who shows up after all this time after leaving for so long, gets close to her, but he does not knock the chair away. Satin simply knocks his hand away, but her father continues before he rests one on the side of her face, her skin breaking out in hives at his touch._

_"When you fight, Satin," he says, despite her telling him that he cannot use her name ever, "You fight to win." What kind of advice is that? She must've rolled her eyes, but her father shakes his head, making a clicking noise with his tongue against the side of his mouth. "No, you don't understand me, Satin. Don't settle for 2nd, or 3rd. Don't let the bastards win, don't let them. You're stronger than that..."_

His words echo in her head, the bastard's words, Satin knowing that she needs to fight, she needs to fight to win, but the bombardment of people keeps on coming, her hands flattened out, bleeding messes by this point, skin ripped clean off, agony bubbling in her throat, the continued sound of Peacekeeper gun fire and Amaris and Aris shouting at one another riding the wind. Satin groans in pain, syllables forming Mirek's name at her lips, or Cyril's name, hell, anyone's name at this point, when someone runs into her again, their foot hitting her windpipe, jutting her head back, the perceptible sound of her neck going _snap._

Satin Spinel fights, and fights, and fights until she cannot fight any longer.

Satin Spinel lost.

* * *

**_Hale Cornerstone: Victor of the 87th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

Kevia's hands are rough on her shoulders, Hale muttering a cooing noise in her throat, her head lolling on her shoulders and slumping against the wall. Not now, she wants to groan towards her companion, as she's in paradise with her husband and they're kissing, and Kevia is interrupting something wonderful, and _how dare she persist! _She smiles to herself, holding her sides tight as a warm feeling embraces her, feeling Arizona kiss the top of her head as he pushes a curl out of the way. He whispers sweet nothings into her ears, and when she opens her eyes in the dream, he's sitting there on the edge of the bed, dressed entirely in white, smiling. "_You are doing a wonderful job, Hale," _he tells her with a sincere grin, Hale sitting up and pushing the covers away.

"_Stay with me..." _she tells him, holding a hand onto his arm, nails digging in slightly to create indentions, but he does not pull away, nor does she pull him close. They simply stay there together for a moment as sunlight spills into the room, falling on the blanket in a flower pattern, Hale tracing it with her ring finger, before making the same pattern on his hand, but Arizona simply looks at her, never taking his eyes off of her.

"_You need to wake up, Hale," _he says, and the smile flatlines, Hale stopping her tracing dead center.

"_No." _The victor shakes her head back and forth in finality, a lump forming in her throat. "_No. I am staying right here with you, dead yet alive, dead yet alive, and our kids will come bursting through the door at any moment and-"_

Arizona kisses her long and hard, pressing his body taut to hers, she falling back against the headboard, resting a hand against the side of her face, cooing slightly and tilting his head some. "_Wake up, Hale. Wake up, Hale. Wake up, Hale. Wake. Up. Hale! WAKE UP HALE!"_

The voice distorts into Kevia's in real life, the victor from One shaking her by the shoulders. "Hale, you gotta wake up!"

"Ari!" Hale screams at the top of her lungs, eyes shut as she rights herself up from the wall, hands outstretched to embrace a phantom that never _is. _Her echo ricocheted through a few alleyways, Kevia wincing at the noise before lightly pushing her again. The victor opens her eyes, her breathing heavy as she falls back against the side of the building, her neck killing her. This is where they decided to crash last night, just yards away from the back entrance to the mansion, to the mansion's prison cells where her children should be. Her body hurts from laughing, teary-eyed stories between her and Kevia, but the moment slumber falls over her, it is a deep sleep with Arizona and her kicking together under the sheets while sunlight landed on her naked back. All a dream. He's gone, and she's stuck in the shittiest city in the world with the shittiest person she's ever known - no, that's not true, her mind corrects - instead of... instead of him. Hale's lower lip quivers for a second, she wiping away a line of drool with the back of her hand. Looking over at Kevia, she sees that her companion is looking at her with wide eyes, raised eyebrows. "I'm sorry..." her voice hangs in the air. "I- I had a dream."

"I know," Kevia adds softly. "You were muttering about him in your sleep."

Hale blushes, getting to her feet, stretching out her back. It must be early, at least before noon by the way the sun is in the sky, the victor reaching over to grab the gun and the knife she took with her, although she still has yet to use it. Hale places the weapons at her belt, frowning slightly. She still hasn't used them to get what she wants and desires... her kids, the freedom of her family and herself... if it comes down to it, will she? Kevia is also armed, this time having the knife out and spinning it occasionally on the concrete, and before they fall asleep, Hale sees out of a bleary eye: practice sessions. Kevia dripping in sweat, standing up, facing the aired pathways of the Capitol streets, just out of the corner of cameras, cameras that Hale can see blinking every so often, shifting their viewpoint every so often as well, the change perceptible by a faint grinding noise that Kevia hears initially, like the gnashing and weeping of teeth. Kevia, without Hale knowing she sees her, practices a few jabs and slashes before eventually giving up, causing Hale to roll back over and look up the sky, lips parting slightly into a smirk.

"What did you wake me up for?"

"Do you hear it?" Kevia asks, raising a hand with her pointer finger extended, she craning her neck as well.

Hale frowns, rubbing the last remaining dredges of sleep from her eyes, a flash of Arizona racing by really quickly between her blinks, the victor pausing in mid-rub, as yes... she hears it too. Gunfire. Close gunfire too, from the way she hears the rebounds, both victors locking eyes. "That... that's close," Hale comments, hands cautiously going to her waist. The thought of not having to defend herself in quite some time no longer bothers her... if something is to come after her that is on the side of the Capitol, she'll end their lives instantly, especially with being close to her kids, possibly.

"Too close," Kevia agrees, face grim, the victor removing the knife from her side, brandishing it outwards. "I saw a Peacekeeper leave and head in that direction too," the blonde juts her head in the direction of the gunshots, mouth set straight. "That means our window is open."

_That means our window is open._

Hale doesn't hesitate, running out from behind the cover of the building and dumpsters, Kevia calling her name even to the point where she raises her voice above a hushed whisper, a hand going to slow her down, but the other victor is right as Hale can _see _it. The door is wide open, a red light blinking on the end of the push bar for someone to open the door from the outside, and she has an idea what will happen when the door shuts, locking them both back out for who knows how long, and she's not going to stay around any longer to see if the gunfire gets any closer. It can be anything at this point. Mutts rampant in the streets, Peacekeepers attacking any rebel bands left - Hale knows that there must be barely anything or anyone left alive, active billboards showing the faces of the Phoenix Rebellion still at large, their faces among them, but the billboards also talk about a victory in Gamemakers Square as well, a bittersweet taste coating her tongue - or the rebels fighting back, led by whoever is left... she doesn't know, and she doesn't care.

All that matters is getting her kids to safety.

She rushes into the open doorway, holding onto her knife too, to plunge it into the first person's chest that she can if given the chance. Kevia is right behind her, albeit a few seconds behind, but she can tell that another presence is behind her, breathing heavily and wiping sweat off of their forehead. Hale takes a step forward down the hallway, the door shutting behind them, the red light shutting off on their side of the door frame. Both of them turn to look at it, Kevia pressing against it to see if it'd open on the other side, which it does, she letting it fall back. Hale gives the other victor a strange look, raising an eyebrow, getting a shrug back in response.

"Just- just to make sure we can leave, y'know?" Kevia smiles faintly, but Hale feels no warmth in the gesture.

The hallway is very dim, there being a few lights here or there kept on, a couple falling down and onto the floor in front of them, as one does the moment Hale takes another step, she going into a fighting stance. These are not the same cells she and Hector had been trapped in. Those cells were underground, underground so deep no one could hear their screams when the batons struck them night after night. Apparently, according to Rennie's insight from his sister, the base of defensive operations for the president were further underground than the prison cells, but Hale has a hard time wrapping her head around that one... there's no way, as they had been as deep as deep could go, as far as the word would allow, but that is what their leader without a tongue claims.

Hale inches toward the end of the hallway, there not being a cells to her immediate left and right down the first straightaway, but when she rounds the corner, she has to swallow a scream back down her throat. A man is hanging up against the bars of the cell, his throat torn open from ear to ear in a ruby red smile, a hand sticking out through the bars itself, fingers twisted in all sorts of directions and angles, grotesque tree limbs threatening to claw her eyes out. Hale exhales a shaky breath, stepping back as far as she could, flattening herself against the wall.

Kevia rounds the corner as well, gasping and covering her mouth with her free hand. The two inch past the dead body, but Hale ends up scooting to the center of the already rather thin lane, for the adjacent cell to her right has two bodies slumped against one another, it looking like someone had fired a single round through both of their skulls. Hale notices that the couple had their hands intertwined with one another, a flare of sympathy rising in her stomach. That would have been her and Arizona, surely, if things had become dire enough for it. She is flooded with shame at the thought that it could've been her and Hector at one time during their imprisonment; it may not have been long, but it is effective enough. She absentmindedly tightens the grip she has on her knife.

The cells are all rather dismal and small, she notes, with no light coming in besides the lights hanging above in the hallway, the cells being smaller and more cramped than the ones she and Hector were in too. The smell of rotten flesh and blood fills her nostrils, she almost gagging at the stenches and sights as they round another bend, still no sign of her children. "You told me that they were in a good place," she hisses at Kevia, gripping her arm. That is the exact verbiage that Kevia used too, whether she wished to deny it or not.

"Bonnie showed me the room!" Kevia gripes back, eyes widening. "It was furnished and everything! Coloring books and two feather beds, and light switches and a water fountain and-" the woman begins to rabble, Hale seeing that there are tears spilling down her face. "She must've moved them during an event, cause I swear last time they had been safe and kept out of harm's way..."

Kevia would have no reason to lie to her anymore, Hale knows this. No one had truly told her to go after her and Hector, she had done it on her own volition, sticking her own neck in the sand for people, her head available for the guillotine to chop off, but even still, Hale grits her teeth, looking at her doggedly. If she were to find her kids down here in the cells like these bodies... the poor woman would be met with a fate worse than death, mark it in the sky and in a seal wax. The two ladies continue venturing through the hallway, peeking around corners with their guns trained, holding onto their knives with a deathlike grip, passing rows and rows of cells with bloodied walls and dead prisoners, too many at the point where Hale's head is swimming at the sights in front of her.

How many people have been killed since this began? Hale recognizes the body of the kid from Nine, Jason Lacey, slumped up against a wall with a bullet hole out through the back of his head and coming out just beneath his eye, a low sob escaping Kevia's throat as she realizes the other person laying in the cell to be Jason's father, cradling the kid's head in the way they've been arranged, but at a second glance, Hale sees that the kid is headless, and so is the father... and they're holding each other's heads- she nearly vomits onto the floor, about to do so, running away from the sight when they spill into a much larger room, columns erected in the middle, spiraling up to the ceiling, there being many cells on the floor, but they've switched from bars to Plexiglas and other glass walls, Hale seeing that they're empty.

All except for one.

She nearly falls to her knees.

"Arianna! Elias!" she screams, not caring how loud she is. She almost knocks Kevia to the ground in rushing over to one of the cells alongside the walls, it being about the size of her own cell just those few days ago, but it is not a well furnished one in the slightest, it being two beds with a sink between them, and a box of markers knocked haphazardly onto the ground. The two kids were sitting next to each other on the floor, eyes closed, but both look unharmed, Arianna opening her eyes at the sound of Hale's voice, then Elias, and then the two Merviere children breaking into smiles, launching to their feet.

"MOM!" the two kids cry together, Hale nearly colliding into the wall. Kevia rushes over just behind her, Hale noticing as she runs that there's an elevator to the side just a bit away, and a staircase heading up to what looks like a stairwell, meaning there's several options. Hale holds one hand on the other side of the glass, as Arianna presses her own hand up against it on their side... tears spilling down all three of their faces. She's gorgeous, her daughter as radiant and beautiful as ever, and no matter what they've been through, she sees the fighting spirit in her little girl's eyes. Elias is glowing, Arizona's luster and strength surging through his body from the way she sees him look at his sister, she pressing her forehead up against it, Kevia inching forward slowly.

Hale shoots at the lock holding the kids in, the gunshot rather deafening to the point where she cannot hear the clamor of her children as they burst free from the prison cell, colliding into her, nearly knocking her onto the floor. She holds them as tight as she can, sobbing for sure, looking like a wreck without a doubt, but it's _them. _These are her kids, her flesh and blood, the last things she has left in this world, and no blonde viper is going to steal away her children. Hale gets down to her knees, throwing her arms around both of them, holding them tight. "I'm here," she says to them, over and over and over again until her voice goes hoarse from how often she repeats them, hugging and kissing them until the sun is to explode from years of old age, until she forgets their names but will never forget their faces... they are hers, and no one is ever going to take them from her again. "I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere." She retracts away from them, hiccupping slightly, wiping away a tear that falls down Elias's cheek, pressing her right hand into Arianna's face, frowning with a pause, her thumb running over a welt mark. "Who... who did that to you?"

"The president..." Arianna says, looking at her feet, Hale's body filling up with rage. "We heard gunshots and screams down here last night," the girl's lower lip quivers, Hale keeping it steady. "I didn't see anything but..."

"We are leaving this place," Hale says, gripping her kids' hands together in hers, looking back at Kevia. "Aunt Kevia and I have come to free you," she thinks of mentioning Hector, Uncle Hector, who her kids adore, but the wound is still fresh in her mind, tears threatening to spill down her cheeks again. "We are leaving this cursed place, and we are never coming back." Her ears pick up the sound of a _ding! _as if an elevator had arrived on their floor, she righting herself up to a standing position, while Kevia advances.

The doors open, and all the water in her mouth evaporates. There's the sound of feet running down a staircase, and a man cursing, a voice that sounds very familiar, but all Hale can think about is the person standing in front of her, pistol out, helmet off, a dangerous and crazed smile dancing across his lips.

Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro.

Kevia matches Hale step for step, standing in front of her, actually, pushing the other woman behind her. Hale sees a shadow racing down the staircase on the second level, and just for a split second she sees a wave of dark brown hair, short cut, and then she almost bursts out into maniacal laughter at the sight of another victor... Lance Viel racing through the open door, skidding to a stop, he covered in blood from head to toe, his sword out and brandished. Kevia takes a glance up at the stairwell, and at Lazarus too, before looking back up at Lance, frozen for a second.

For a moment, no one says anything, Hale going to open her mouth and draw first blood when Lazarus beats her to the punch, cocking his gun and pulling back on the chamber. "It's a shame, really..." he says, shaking his head. "You wanting to slip out before the fun could really begin," his eyes flash cold, a chill racing through her body. "You will never understand how good you had it, and here you are, trying to throw it all away..."

"Hale," Kevia hisses through clenched teeth, the other victor looking down to see the blonde tightening the grip on her knife, "Take Elias and Arianna and go..."

"No, I-" Hale tries to protest.

The other victor doesn't even look back at her, simply raising her voice instead to where Elias covers his ears with his hands. "You are going to listen to me. This is not your fight. Lance and I can do it..." Kevia's voice cracks, a sign that she is about to cry, Hale being aware of all of her tricks. Hale has no idea how Lance is here, but she's not about to question it, she is not going to question it, she tightening her hold on Arianna's hand, her daughter cowering behind her. "I am not going to tell you a third time," Kevia says, voice dancing threateningly low to a breaking ice line, tone as frigid as the north wind. Up on the raised platform, Lance presses a hand to his side in pain, tightening the grip on his sword, bracing to jump to the ground. Hale still does not move, keeping her eyes back and forth between her ally and Lazarus, who is undoing his gloves, dropping his helmet to the ground with a clatter. "GO!" Kevia screams, physically screaming this time, before the woman raises her gun, firing a shot at the Head Peacekeeper.

It is not Hale that races the kids away, but the kids that take her, Arianna and Elias pulling at their mother's arms, any words of protest dying on Hale's lips as she watches a woman she thought she would've hated for the rest of her life charge forward, until she sees no more, her sight blocked by the rounded wall and the wave of dead bodies locked up in prison cells, as if corpses would be running away any time soon.

She had stepped onto the devil's doorstep, and never even got to ring the doorbell, a scream tearing from her throat, hailed by a separate gunshot in her heart.

* * *

**_Mirek Bosco: District 12 Male P.O.V (18)_**

* * *

No. No. No. No. No. That is the word that'll keep him alive. It is a quick and easy phrase in the heat of the moment, but there's too much noise and all Mirek can focus on is Satin's singing scream as the crowd envelops her, and the last he sees is a wisp of blonde hair and her hands outstretched towards the sky. The very people he's tried to save, and they're all being murdered, and if he doesn't move, then _he'll _be murdered. Mirek ducks under a hail of gunfire, trying to keep his breathing steady as a Capitol citizen rushes towards the front line of shooters, getting a bullet to the neck, the body falling down to the floor in a twitching mess. He looks from behind a knocked over column, bullet holes peppered throughout the marble surface, seeing that it is not all of the Peacekeepers firing in the front any longer, and that Amaris is also not firing her weapon either, her helmet removed, trying to get in Aris's face, a wicked grin spreading across the Career's face, sickening disgust flooding through his system.

Mirek looks back at the fleeing Capitol crowd on the other side of the prison, they still trying to force their way through a legion of Peacekeepers on the other end, a sea of dead bodies separating himself from them, but the citizens down on the other end are not doing much better for themselves either, falling back as the Peacekeepers draw out knives, batons, and guns of their own. It is pandemonium, chaos, Mirek wanting to sink to his knees and cry at all of the senseless violence and murder he is seeing unfold in front of him, but every time he thinks of shutting down, a painful headache spreads out across the back of his head, bringing him down to one knee, Bloom's voice radiating through his head amidst the pulses. "_You are not a coward!" _his district partner's voice shouts at him, "_You went and saved an elderly woman who was being punished wrongfully. What are you going to do to protect the murder of eight hundred people, Mirek?"_

Is this it? Is this the senseless she and her father had been fighting for, fighting against? Mirek grits his teeth together, clenching his hands into fists. He had been angry at his father his entire life up until his interview with Pollux Aetos, that his father had abandoned the family for some selfish reason concerning personal glory or private glory and a station to do whatever he wanted... when he's eight years old and sees the Peacekeeper at his house in that blinding white uniform, his father never even says goodbye, he never says where he's going - "_He's going to the dirt,_" his sister comments once, over a slice of bread, and he ends up hitting her across the face for slander and libel, Mirek realizing that he believes in the slander and libel too, as his father went to the dirt - and he never apologizes.

"He shouldn't have to apologize..." he whispers to himself, something Bloom had told him then, just a few nights ago, wiping away his tears.

He will not ask his father to apologize, he should've never made Bloom apologize to him for actions she couldn't control, actions trying to keep him from a future like this... and he is not going to let their sacrifices go to waste. Mirek closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. This is not him jumping a single Peacekeeper, not in the slightest, but an entire battalion of at least ten or so, armed, firing, and firing, and firing, the crowd having run the wrong way, Mirek wanting to shout that as he is one of the only people to rush forward instead of running behind, for the last thing he sees when looking the other way is Satin getting crushed by the crowd, and he doesn't want to look back in case she's there... his mind incapable to even finish the thought.

Mirek releases his deep breath, going to vault over the column and tackle the nearest Peacekeeper when he freezes again, falling back as he can hear Amaris screaming something, it slightly unintelligible over the gunfire.

"That's enough, Aris!" she screams. "You made your fucking point!"

"No, Amaris, no, we haven't made our point," Aris snipes back at her, Mirek looking around the column to see that she is standing in front of him, a hand pressing against his lowering his gun to the ground, the other Peacekeepers halting their fire, but that does not mean the chaos on the other end of the prison cell has ceased either. "We were given orders, and our orders were to execute them all."

"Anyone who orders the execution of this many people is not one to follow..." Amaris tells him, she dropping her Peacekeeper helmet to the side. "I apologized to them before I gave the order and-"

"You gave it," Aris cuts in, he pointing a finger in her face, jabbing Amaris in the chest. "_You _gave the order! Not me! It is not my fault that these people are all dying."

"You don't get it, do you?" Mirek can hear the desperation in her voice, the fight that gives up, the fight that stops fighting when there is no more blood beating to its heart any longer. "At what point is it enough? At what point do we draw our line in the sand? We've listened to his order, and we've definitely killed more than I thought we would've... I can't do this anymore, Aris," Amaris takes a step back, throwing her gun to the ground as well, Mirek's eyes widening at the same time Aris's do, the look of fury rippling across the Career's face enough to make all the hair on his arms stand up on end. "Soldiers, stand down," she orders. "We are not killing them anymore. Collect the bodies and we'll put them into a grave... we need to go and speak to the others down there before they're all killed," Amaris crosses her arms, Mirek hiding further behind the column, at a loss for words. He never knew the girl could show any other emotion than pride and anger. "I am ending it here."

However, as much as Mirek wants to warn her, he finds himself unable to, for the way Aris looks back at the other Peacekeepers, shrugging his shoulders, and then the Career brings his own gun up, cocking it as loud and slowly as he can, Mirek unable to tear his eyes off of the scene while the carnage that Satin started wages down below. The plan had been to stir a panic, act as if a mutt were about to devour them to get a Peacekeeper to observe the mess before they're all slaughtered, Satin pushing to the front of the party, and demanding the Capitol citizens to act... but it has all erupted into this mess, this carnal mess. Amaris freezes in place, before turning around, Mirek's gaze falling onto the gun she had put in the dirt, the weapon she herself had dropped.

"Here's the thing, Amaris," Aris says cockily, grinning sweetly. Mirek should've punched the kid in the face and broke his nose all that time ago back in the Training Center, before he had gone to them out of spite to rag on Bloom and her so-called allegiances. "You're not in charge anymore, sweetheart," Amaris takes a step back at that, a hand going to her chest, but she doesn't respond. "I know Lazarus told you that you were, but he changed his mind this morning..." Mirek's blood runs ice cold, he reaching around him for anything he could grab as a possible defense mechanism, his hands gripping around a rough rock. "You have become a liability, Amaris. Your heart is no longer in the Capitol cause, to where you'd rather support known traitors, and that is something he cannot have any longer in his ranks, where the Peacekeepers cannot serve two masters, and we cannot have any sort of filth thinking they're fit enough to lead," Mirek sees that Aris is spitting venom and vitriol at this point, spewing out droplets of saliva so fast off his tongue that they coalesce together in the air. His grin furthers into a wilder Glashow grin. "I've been looking forward to this for quite some time, actually," Aris unlocks the safety on his weapon. "With you dead, Lazarus told me that I will be his protégé, that I'll become the next Head Peacekeeper, and that's much better than the pathetic you."

"You're going to sell your soul for a position?" Amaris tells him, her voice hollow.

"Anyone in my position would. I'm a practical man."

"You're a monster."

"And you're going to be dead meat, Amaris," Aris tilts his head to the side. "That's enough talk from you. I am going to enjoy this."

Amaris punches him straight in the mouth, her next hit going for his nose. Mirek sees a splash of scarlet flood from the boy's body, he howling in pain, Amaris grabbing him and kneeing him, kicking him to the ground, before rushing by the gathered Peacekeepers, it all happening in a matter of seconds. There's a moment where Aris is bent over himself, hands going to his face to collect the vermillion spilling out of his body, a snarling, animalistic roar rising from his throat. "GO GET HER!" he screams at the Peacekeepers, the fellow eight officers looking at him behind their masks, Mirek extending his look to see that Amaris is racing off through the streets, catapulting herself over a park bench, she having picked her gun up, firing a warning shot behind her, the bullet missing them, but the further they stood there, the longer she'd continue to get away, the girl running in the direction of the mansion.

Aris screams at the other Peacekeepers again, and without another word they began to race after Amaris, leaving him all alone with his blood splattered on the floor, his hands pressed into the concrete, but Mirek can hear his ragged breathing from his hiding place. The Career locks his jaw, letting the blood spill down his face, grabbing his gun that had been knocked out of his grip, seething rage pouring out from every pore on his body. He gets to his feet, righting himself, taking a stumbling step towards the other side of the terminal, towards all the Capitol citizens still trying to push their way through the rigid lines of the forces down by the opposite exit door. Mirek slowly gets to his feet, the Peacekeepers Aris sent after Amaris gone now, it being just he and the asshole.

Going to end more lives, is he?

Not on his watch.

With a shout, Mirek races forward, the noise causing Aris to turn around. There is a few feet of distance between the two men, Aris firing off a single shot before the boy from Twelve collides into him. The bullet grazes just the tip of his shoulder, enough to make Mirek wince in pain, a bit of scarlet seeping out from the bullet hole, but it is nothing he cannot handle. Pickaxe cuts and wounds are no little papercuts. The two boys roll on the concrete for a moment, Mirek seeing just how thin Aris is truly is up close and personal, but the size doesn't fool him, the kid at seventeen is chosen to be the District 2 male volunteer for a reason; he must be good. Given the fact, proven immediately as Aris launches Mirek off of him, the kid skidding into a column, still upright. The Career wipes at his mouth, teeth glistening a bright ruby red, eyes appraising over his attacker, a glimmering twinkle going off as he recognizes who it is.

Aris takes another shot, Mirek rolling to the side, holding onto his rock with his other hand, vaulting it at the boy from Two. It hits Aris in the side, causing him to stumble and clutch his side in pain, the rock being about the size of Mirek's fists pressed together. He races forward, kicking the gun out of the Career's hands, it skittering out onto the main tile of the Capitol, he hearing a crunch from the hand he kicks, Aris howling in pain as Mirek straddles him, hands going for his neck. The rock is somewhere, he not exactly sure where, but that doesn't matter; he'll kill Aris with his bare hands if he has to. However, as his hands are seized around the kid's throat, the boy is starting to smile, showing his coppery glistened teeth, like he's enjoying getting choked out, that causing Mirek to recoil slightly in disgust, but it is the window of opportunity that Aris needs.

The Career knees him in the groin from underneath Mirek, the low blow causing him to expel all the air in his lungs, Mirek falling off of Aris and onto the ground, clutching his crotch in agony, a few red dots blinking in his vision, the bullet wound in his shoulder starting to spill copper onto his shirt, a bit of agony flaring up in his stomach. He lies there for a second, unmoving, eyes widening at the sight of Aris bringing a knife down onto him, Mirek rolling out of the way just in the nick of time before the blade digs into the concrete, scratching a tally mark into the slate surface. Aris slashes again and again, making fast stabbing movements, one slice going through Mirek's right bicep, another torrent of blood spilling out, he gritting his teeth in pain.

He struggles to get to his feet, hands gripping the rock again, bringing his hands up to block Aris's next strike, kicking him in the chest as he falls down against the column he had hid himself behind initially when the chaos all started. Mirek defends himself against the following strike, still holding onto the rock. Aris gets his arm locked between Mirek's two, the kid from Twelve undoing his defensive position, causing the Career to lose his balance and stumble some, blade missing him and going into the column. Mirek brings the rock up against Aris's skull, not near as strong as a blow as he'd like, but when he brings his hand back, gripping onto the rock, its dark surface is covered in an oozing crimson tide, droplets dripping off of it. Aris stumbles back, pressing a hand against his skull where he had been hit, a good blow, brain damage perhaps... but it has not downed him. Aris screams at Mirek, diving forward once more, the kid from Twelve trying to outmaneuver him when Aris's knife finds its way into his stomach, just by his left hip, a croak of pain bubbling in Mirek's throat.

The Career snarls another inhuman cry, dragging the knife rapidly to the left and right, creating a hole in Mirek's stomach, white agony flashing behind his eyes, the miner's son growling in pain, falling to his knees, hands reaching for Aris's belt. When he looks down at the jaggedness made out of his skin, bile threatens to spill from his throat, as that is his small intestine dripping out, blood covering his organs, bits of strength fleeing from him every few seconds, but not before he grips the new object in his hand, the object he had taken off of the Career's belt as Aris backs up, grinning cheekily, not realizing what had been taken. Mirek takes the pin out of the grenade he pulled off of Aris's belt, there being a few dangling next to the bare sheath where the knife had gone. Mirek, with the last strength he could reserve in his body, chucks the grenade at Aris, who is starting to sway slightly from the forced head trauma.

Aris catches it, smirking again, thinking it to be a rock, Mirek giving him the thumbs up as he falls back, resting his head on the column he had been hiding against when all of this started. The Career catches onto the ticking noise too late, seeing what he's holding onto, preparing to throw it again, but he's too late. The grenade is just free of his fingertips, leeching onto his thumb, when it explodes, catching Aris in a carnal wave of fire, his scream swallowed up by the torrent of hellfire overwhelming his body, there being one last cry of terror and fear before the force of the explosion rips his body into thirds, blood flying free as his body splits open, his head hitting the wall, on fire, eyes falling slack. Mirek can only hear the explosion ringing in his ears at this point, eyes widened in disbelief at what he's just seen, agony washing down his feet, cascading and pooling at his toes, a strand of his small intestine resting against the ground from Aris's stabbing attack.

He closes his eyes, his chest rising and falling in shallow bursts, the sounds of the dying hitting his ears, but that is not what Mirek hears inside his head. It is his mother's voice. It is his sister's voice, both in his life telling him how much he is needed, how much they still need at home, but then, on the wind, there's another voice, Mirek smiling lightly to himself. In his ears he can hear Bloom and Satin cheering him on, though he'll dare not open his eyes, for he does not want to see the horrors of the world any longer, they have kept him pinned to the mat, kept him pinned and trapped in a cage of his own fear, piss, and shit.

"_I am proud to call you my son, Mirek," _he hears his father tell him, a gentle hand holding back the blood spilling out of his body.

"_I am proud to call you my father..." _Mirek trails off, out loud, a faint smile dancing on his face, head lolling to the side with a heaviness building in his neck.

"_Come home to me, please. I miss you." _

Mirek Bosco has encountered the devil plenty of times before in his life, sometimes thinking he's looking back at him in the bathroom mirror, sneering and jeering. The devil is Bloom with her tanned skin and dark hair. The devil is Satin and her wild schemes. The devil is Aris and his wicked grin, pale hands holding onto a knife. The devil is Mirek gripping his face tight, laughing and protesting against the injustice in the world.

Mirek Bosco stands on the devil's doorstep, but he never knocks, as his fist will never reach the door to even knock in the first place.

* * *

**_Lance Viel: Victor of the 79th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

She's alive. She- she's alive, and Lance cannot believe his eyes. Nor can he believe the fact that he's unable to reach her, as Lazarus is managing at proving to be quite the nuisance, and Lance has not survived a brutal battle in the heart of the Capitol to die in some dejected basement. He cannot believe what he is looking at from his high point, seeing Head Peacekeeper Lazarus point a gun at her and Hale, wincing as he presses his hand into his side, the wound from yesterday still fresh and starting to slow him down, though Lance's covered it. He cannot hear what Kevia is saying to Hale, as Hale takes her kids off and runs away, Kevia pulling her gun out and firing at the Head Peacekeeper. Lance ducks out of habit from the shot, falling down onto the grated level of the second level, grimacing in pain. The wound in his side has started to act up again, the one just at his hip, but it is nothing he hasn't experienced before, the wounds in the arena a lot worse.

A lot worse, when he watches multiple people getting their heads removed from their shoulders.

He lost the sword in the alleyway back then, retreating away from the fight, but he knows there's only one direction for him to head in, and that is towards the mansion after hearing of Hale's plan. He would not let them die, to only arrive late and at the last few moments, witness Kevia throw herself headlong into the fray. Lance grips onto his knives that he had stolen off of dead Peacekeeper bodies, slitting one man's throat to get inside the mansion, breaking through a subterranean level floor, falling directly into a breakroom just away from the staircase he clamors down. As far as he knows, Kevia and Hale are not dead from electronic billboards showing their faces, alongside Criston, Valencia, Rennie, and Pollux, but he does see that Hector's face isn't there, but it is not like he has a long time to simply stop and look at the projections, for he needs to be off of the streets by nightfall.

Lance sees through the bars of the floor he's on, Kevia firing another shot at Lazarus, he moving out of the way behind a column, his gun already cocked, holding the weapon up to his chest. The victor advances when Lazarus rounds the corner, punching Kevia in the face. Lance audibly gasps as Kevia falls to the floor, but it doesn't seem to be that Lazarus broke her nose. He grits his teeth together, hoisting himself up onto his elbows, before groaning out in pain as he vaults his body over to the other side. Lance falls about ten feet to the ground onto the concrete. Lazarus looks back, Lance groaning and clutching his side in pain, a splash of copper falling onto the floor, he slipping it as he tries to get up. It is the bit of leverage that Kevia needs, she reaching into her pocket for a knife, stabbing Lazarus through the hand with it, slicing into the gloved leather. He cusses, wrenching himself away from Kevia, aiming his gun at her. Her eyes widen, turning away as fast as she could to hide behind a column, Lazarus firing at her, Kevia getting struck in the shoulder. She falls to the ground with a weak cry, crawling behind cover, Lazarus taking another shot, missing her.

He turns on Lance, Lance getting to his feet and rushing to hide up against another column, he in one corner of the room, Kevia in the other, Lazarus between them, the victor hearing Lazarus cock his gun again, starting to laugh as he walks around, checking columns, the two victors constantly moving from hiding place to hiding place.

"I know you're here, Kevia!" Lazarus shouts at the top of his lungs. "Don't think I forgot about you too, Lance!" he adds, his voice rising in threatening malice. "It doesn't matter to me anymore if you live or die... I left the door open so Hale could come in, to come and give us a visit," Lance's blood chills to ice. Hale and Kevia must've run inside at the earliest opportunity... and he got in too... did- did all of this happen because someone _let them? _"You think I am not going to know what is going on in my city at all times? Please, you know how this'll end..." Lazarus turns around the corner, firing a shot into the shadows, Lance flinching as the bullet hits the wall near him. "Bonnie has locked herself away in her room because she hit a child. I sent my two loyal tributes to go and kill eight hundred Capitol prisoners... Constantine is wasting away in the Gamemaker Center," This is all news to Lance. He had heard a bit of gunfire earlier in the morning, but he doesn't decide to investigate... which tributes are doing this? Lazarus smacks his armor with his fist, voice rising and rising and rising. "Me! It has fallen on me! I am the one who'll save this city! ME! NO ONE ELSE!" he roars gutturally. "So come on... put your steel to the test. I know you want to try, you _fucking whore... you fucking bastard!" _he screams, anger rising in Lance's bait.

Kevia yells something enraged over in the corner from her hiding spot, Lance turning as well. She has her knife raised, Lance rounding around the bend as well, when the lights above them go out instantly, the hallway drowning in darkness. The last Lance sees, Lazarus dropped his gun, going for his own blade strapped to his arm through a protective pocket, Kevia stabbing towards him, and then the lights shut out. Lance freezes for a second, as there is no sound except a pained gasp, he unable to determine who. A backup generator rushes to live, he hearing the whirring noise above his head, a low luster of yellow filling the prison cell block, his eyes adjusting to the light, a gasp rising in his throat as he sees Kevia fall back onto the floor, her hands just below her heart, clutching at the stab wound placed there. Lazarus advances on her, his blade raised high, blood dripping off of the steel, making a _pitter pat _noise on the floor as it creates a puddle, her gun knocked to the side, and her knife having fallen out of her grip.

"You little _bitch!" _Lazarus snarls. "I didn't get to gut you when you saved Hale and Hector, but they're not here... I'm going to-"

Lance screams at the top of his lungs, wrenching his own blade free, picking up Kevia's dropped one. The Head Peacekeeper never gets to turn around and see what kills him, as Lance drives his first blade into the back of Lazarus's skull, bringing the other blade round the front and driving it into his heart. There's a splash of scarlet all over Lance's hands, he almost slipping again as Lazarus stood in place for a second, the victor tossing the Head Peacekeeper to the side, the rage in his body receding at the sight of Kevia lying there on the ground in a pool of crimson.

He rushes over to her, falling to his knees, hands hovering above her body, unsure of where to place them. She looks up at him, eyes widening again, Kevia letting out a shaky, pained breath. "Lance..." she whispers, bringing her eyebrows together, raising a hand from her wound, pale fingers and skin dyed a putrid crimson, the wound just below her heart gushing out blood. He lets her place the hand there, looking back at Lazarus's corpse for a second, terrified that he is going to get up and come at them again. Though he knows that nothing like that will ever happen, he realizes with a pang to the heart that he did kill him. _He did that. _Lance swears once upon a time he'd never act that violent again, but the guy gets to close to Kevia and all he sees is red filling his ledger and-

She presses her hand into his face, her left thumb tracing over his beard. Lance grips his hand over hers too, not minding the blood spilling down his face. "Can you walk, Kev?"

She shakes her head back and forth, a light smile crossing her features, teeth glistening in a copper fluid, a crimson droplet sliding down her cheek. "Lance, he stabbed me in the heart; I'm not getting up from this."

A lump forms in his throat, his arms seizing up with fear, as he sets her hand down, Kevia moving it back to her side, her blonde hair getting flecks of crimson in them, bright lemonade stirred with strawberry powder, breaking down into dust. "No. You- you're lying, Kev," he grips her by the shoulders, moving himself so he is holding her up in his arms, pressing one hand at her waist. "You're just... you're delirious from the pain, no..." A lone tear slides down his face. This is not how it is supposed to go. He is supposed to ride in on a white horse, blade at the ready, slaying any foe who wishes to get in between he and his lady.

Not... not this.

Kevia blinks away a few tears, swallowing heavily. "Lance, look at the wound," he parts his mouth open to protest, but her nod and eyes flit down to the wound, she raising her hands just so away from it as he looks down. The skin has gone pale and ragged, a gush of blood seeping from it, and as far as Lance knows, there is no medic for a good half mile around them, and he's not about to rush into the mansion to look for a healer. He lowers her hands back down onto it, pressing down to apply pressure, but when he looks her in the eyes, she's shaking her head back and forth. "I'm not coming back from this one."

"No, Kevia," Lance shakes his head back and forth firmly, moving so fast he nearly takes his head off, the lump in his throat getting larger. "No, no, no, no. I am not letting you die on my watch." He has seen the big bad Kevia Janelle live through and outlive many terrible things in her heyday, when they're sitting in her bathroom in her house, the lights dim and low as she sits in the tub, resting her hands above the water so her wrists are half concealed under the water, half peeking through, Lance resting a glass of wine on the side, pressing his lips to hers.

She tastes of cigarette smoke and salt. Of blood and ash. Of tears and rose petals. She smells of his district partner's screams, or the singing steel when he wins, slicing and beheading through the remaining tribute.

"You've always been sweet to me, even after all I've done, all the bitchiness and-" Kevia says softly, he breaking from the thought of her lips on his.

"Don't _say that, Kevia," _Lance tightens his grip on her hands.

"Please, Lance, take care of them. Take care of Hale, take care of Valencia," she swallows down a sob. "I didn't do any of this for me, I did it for her."

"And you're going to keep doing it for her."

"I love you, Lance..." Kevia interrupts him, as he would continue going, she looking at him. Glimmering blue eyes pierce through him, and to think he had yelled at her and broke coffee cups in her house and in his. Golden rings sealed in matrimony with a kiss, a kiss shared under a birch tree, hands linked together with halcyon bands that have never seen the light of day.

"I- I love you too, Kev..." Lance whispers back.

Kevia brings her eyebrows together softly, letting out a gasp of pain, her hands starting "Always?"

"Always." He doesn't care that he's crying. He thought he had cried every bit of himself away at one point, but not any longer.

"Good," she nods, her hands falling away from her body, falling lax onto the floor. "Good," Kevia says, tilting her head up to the ceiling away from Lance's face. "Thank you... thank you for letting me do this one thing right. Just this one thing..." The victor from One lets out a single shaky breath, a single last breath, tears in her eyes, one falling down her cheek, he kneeling in a pool of blood, the wound in his side starting to flare up again, it incomparable to the wound in his heart.

A beat.

A pause.

And then, after a moment, a very light shake as Kevia lies in Lance's arms, mouth parted open, eyes wide, staring at a white nothingness in the valley beyond.

"Kevia?" Lance whimpers. "Kevia... Kev?" he gives her body another shake, this time harder than that, tears streaming clear down his face, he hiccupping a cough away, a bit of snot falling through as he holds her, he holds his entire world in his arms, her broken body, her bloodied body. "No... please, please don't. Please, please get up for me. C'mon smile! Call someone a bitch! Please, please, please, Kevia!" Lance bends his head down towards her chest, cradling her in his arms, sobbing while he rocks back and forth in place. "Don't do this to me, Kevia. Please don't do this to me," he sobs. "I love you, I love you, I love you, and I want you to come back to me... please come back to me," the victor begs.

There they stay, Lance rocking his body back and forth as he holds her to his chest, his cries filling the silence with the sound of gunshots following and echoing behind, in the halo of the power outage, dusk yellow light washing over his body.

Kevia Janelle rings the doorbell on the devil's doorstep, and this time, he invites her in. She goes in...

But she never comes out.

* * *

**7th: Satin Spinel, 18, District One Female. Killed in the rebellion via crushed to death by a panicked crowd. Created by Mistycharming. Like the few deaths that have preceded hers - Vanya, Cyril, and Bloom - it really hurt saying goodbye to Satin. I became so enraptured with her character, as Misty gave me quite the amazing doll - something about the D1F, I suppose - and she turned away from being a self-centered girl who then had her world flipped upside down, and she tried to do some good. I had this death planned in my head for the longest time, and briefly, for a little while, I entertained keeping her alive, but I think it was almost inevitable. Satin, you were amazing, and I'll absolutely miss you the most from this chapter. The POV I wrote for her in Chapter 21 remains to still be my favorite section of writing I've ever put down, and it is all because of her. **

**6th: Aris Lindel, 17, District Two Male. Killed by Mirek Bosco via explosion by grenade. Created by grimbutnotalways. Aris, Aris, Aris, where do I start with you? You were the first true Capitol loyalist character I've ever been given, and having some staunch villainy in this story from a tribute where most of it has come from the Capitol cast was something I absolutely enjoyed. I initially had you and Seth swapped for roles, and that Aris would die all the way at 17th place, but then I had a light bulb go off in my head... and the Aris Lindel Peacekeeper arc was born; if he couldn't be a victor, he'd be the next best thing. You were immensely entertaining to write, and I'll miss you too. I cannot recall enjoying writing another tribute villain as much as I did with you, Aris. **

**5th: Mirek Bosco, 18, District Twelve Male. Killed by Aris Lindel via bleeding out from gunshot wounds. Created by curiousclove. I never expected Mirek to last as long as he did, but I found myself in him a bit, and he having a great story alongside Bloom where he turned into something earlier arc him would've hated... and bless the world, Mirek tried. With Aris dead, Amaris fleeing, Lazarus killed in the basement... has he helped dismantle the Rodney administration? I really found myself liking Mirek since Day 1, and I am glad many of you saw his journey too. Like with Satin and Aris, Mirek, I shall miss you. Go see Bloom, Satin, and your father in the afterlife.**

* * *

**_Tribute List (Boy - Girl)_**

District 3: **Ciphra Longsdale **[_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr **[_Submitted by Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara **[_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 10: **Vivian Whiplash **[_Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

...

_**Capitol Cast of Characters**_

_President of Panem: _**Bonnie Rodney**

_Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: _**Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies: _**Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games:_ **Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: _**Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: _**Hale Cornerstone**

_Head Gamemaker:_ **Constantine Fallorne**

* * *

**There we are, ladies and gentlemen, Chapter #34: On the Devil's Doorstep, for Bombs and Bullets. I have cried a lot while writing this chapter, because I realized with an aching pain in my chest how much I missed so many of these characters and tributes and their personal journeys... to then reminisce on the fact that I'm almost done, and there's only four chapters between here and the end. So, we have said goodbye to Satin, Aris, and Mirek in one fell swoop, with four tributes left, eight Capitol characters remaining. I never, in all honesty - again, something about D1F's - never realized I'd love Kevia as much as I did as I cried hardcore writing this scene, flipping back and forth to having it be her or Lance taking the loss against Lazarus, a fight never meant to be a showdown, but here we are. Rennie + Vivian and Ponty on their way to get Bonnie, Amaris has escaped a killing attempt, the power to the city has been shut off by a certain genius and his protégé, and meanwhile in a dark cell, Hale and Kevia rescued the former's kids... but as several of you predicted, it ends in tragedy. Congratulations to LiveFreeOrDie, Flammifera, SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn, and Queenofinsanity for Amaris, Ciphra, Vivian, and Ponty into making it to the final four and the finale of Bombs and Bullets... let's see if they have it in them to survive what is to come next and be the end of all ends.**

**There is just one more chapter left for the Phoenix Rebellion to be wrapped up - three POVs in the chapter, shouldn't be _as _long as this chapter was, but still more than 10k at the very least - and I can't believe we're here. After #35, we'll be in the epilogue stage before I say goodbye to Bombs and Bullets forever, and I'm not ready. In any instance, we still have to get through one more... Chapter #35: Rennie's Ultimatum. Any last theories and plot wonderings as we get to the end? What about epilogue guesses? I am really excited to be here, and excited for you all to see it. I hope you do review and let me know what you thought, your support is greatly appreciated. I love you very much! Have a great day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	35. Rennie's Ultimatum (Phoenix XIII)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #35: Rennie's Ultimatum. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of the main plot of Bombs and Bullets, here where the figurehead Phoenix Rebellion led by an avox against a president who stole away the throne, shall end. Four tributes remain, eight Capitol characters remain, and there is plenty at stake. This chapter is solely from Capitol character points of view, as will be the first of three epilogue chapters that you won't want to miss. The plotline that started way back in Slaughter's beginning, the same plot that won me an award - still reeling from that shock and happiness - will end... all on Rennie's shoulders. Last chapter, Satin and Mirek tried staging a panicked breakout which ended in both of them dying, killing Aris in the chaos, Hale and Kevia freed Hale's children, Kevia took a knife to the stomach, and Rennie is on a mission with Vivian and Ponty. Plenty of drama and violence coming your way. Please enjoy Chapter #35: Rennie's Ultimatum.**

* * *

_~ And so sayeth the Lord, when I call for you, I expect you to answer. There is no dealings of rocks and hard places here in the sanctuary of the Lord._

**_Pollux Aetos: Master of Ceremonies P.O.V_**

* * *

The floor is silent, Pollux, Criston, and Ciphra standing around and hiding in the corners of Constantine's apartment. The victor constantly keeps doing and undoing the blinds, furling and unfurling them in a way that is for sure to do damage to them, Ciphra standing still in front of the console, floating through the assorted files appearing on the screens, fingers swiping this way and that, Pollux finding himself to be lounging on the couch, nursing a glass of water in his hand. They haven't spoken a word since Rennie and the others left, not after the way the directive had been given to them. To wait for the signal, whatever that signal is supposed to be, something Pollux forgets to ask as the avox vanishes with the two tributes on his heels.

He has been forgetting to do that as of late, to ask questions. He supposes it must be him getting used to being knocked aside and not given any information, but Pollux knows that if he complains about that, it'll simply detract from what needs to be done. Maybe it doesn't matter if he doesn't know what Rennie had been planning to do all this time, as maybe if he were to find out, it'd only weaken their position... he has no idea. The interviewer bites down on his left cheek, gnawing away at the skin, taking a long sip of water, feeling the thrum in his throat as he swallows. A year ago today, he had been in the mansion talking to Bonnie on one of their couches, and a year ago there had been none of this insanity going on; no explosions in the sky, or Avoxes breaking free from their chains... he had just been an interviewer, and Bonnie had just been the president's wife. He laughs lightly to himself at the thought, finishing the glass of water, setting it down on the coffee table that looks eerily just like the one in his apartment.

Pollux has never spent this long of a time without sleeping in a featherbed, but it is too dangerous to go back to his own apartment and sleep. The moment the laugh leaves his lips, and he sets the glass of water down, Ciphra shoots him a dirty look over in her corner, Criston putting the blinds down for the umpteenth time, going over to the girl. Ciphra swaps places with Criston for a moment, wiping some beads of sweat off her forehead. Rennie decides it to be a good cover to turn the air conditioning off, as otherwise it'd be another alert to Constantine that they're there. Doing what they're about to do... well. Pollux looks away from watching the water droplets condensate off of the glass, bringing his attention up to Ciphra, who is staring into his soul, and then, without another second wasted, the girl from Three sighs.

"I used to hate you."

"Hmm?" Pollux raises an eyebrow, but he does not rise up from his seat. He supposes there must be something that can be done to pass the time, but that is not what he expects to have suddenly spilling out of her mouth. Maybe he should get up, he's not sure. Indecisiveness has crippled him as of late.

"You," Ciphra gestures in his direction with her head, "I used to hate you."

"Oh? And why is that?"

Criston pinches his brow, sighing lowly, swinging his head over to look at him. "Pollux, do you really think you need that to be an answer? This isn't one of your interviews."

Pollux almost curses, but he holds himself back. He does get up however, holding onto the empty glass of water in his hand. The man has never found the place for anger in his life, but there have obviously been a few times when he's lashed out and released control a bit too early, such as the time he breaks his own coffee table, or choked Rennie up against the side of a building all because... "_No, not all because, Pollux," _he tells himself with the shake of his head. Yes, Rennie is waging war against Bonnie, while everyone else is waging war against the Capitol. He knows, Pollux does, why the redhead fights and fights. There's no need any longer to hide behind the shield that is for Panem; it is all revenge for his sister... the same woman who- Pollux shakes his head, biting down on his tongue. It is water under the bridge now, and he should've seen the writing on the wall way beforehand, calling out to him like a shining beacon.

"Well, Ciphra, I'm sorry to hear that you didn't like me. Valencia didn't like me either, after we met." Pollux shrugs his shoulders. That has been one of the only days in recent memory for him where he is scared for his life. Calhoun is his best friend and all, and would never willingly hurt him, but he's never been in an interview with a victor, let alone a Career at that. It has been a handful of times when an outer district victor has definitely been too wound up to watch the arena and have their victory interview happen a bit later when they're ready, but what Valencia does is unprecedented, especially as a girl from One. She leaves, but not because she's too scared to watch them, but because she refuses to be on stage with him. The moment she leaves, the camera crew is fumbling with what to do, and Pollux is lost for words standing there on stage, looking at the camera, fear evident in his eyes.

Valencia left, and she didn't come back... he thought his days were numbered then.

"You insulted her during her interview, Pollux. Don't you remember doing that?" Criston asks, going back to check the blinds. Pollux has half the nerve to snap at the victor, but he understands why he's so anxious and wound up, it only makes sense. Being a fugitive and staying in the very place where they can be carted off and killed is quite the terrifying experience, he must admit. Standing on the stage, drowning in the spotlights, it is almost to the point where Pollux forgets everything else he's ever done when he isn't standing there under the halcyon bath.

He waves a hand back and forth, dismissively. Valencia is able to stand in his company now, even if she does actually despise him, and she's never said anything to his face about it. "Faulty memory."

"I know Capitolites are full of excuses-" Ciphra scoffs

Pollux's head snaps up like a rickshaw, bobbing in a nutcracker manner. "You said, _used _to hate me, Ciphra. Do you still hate me now?" Her interview had been amazing, talking about Veracity, and to think that the girl he is speaking to four days ago could end up being the reason they survive this mess. To think that some random robot of a District Three family is Panem's saving grace.

The girl pauses her next statement, mouth open as she closes it, brewing in her thoughts. "No. At least, I don't think so," Ciphra nods, Pollux's shoulders falling back sagely, he setting the glass of water down on the table. "I knew that not every Capitolite was some outlandishly dressed monster or brute wanting to see savagery and slaughter on TV, but you made it different, you made me feel different. You looked like you enjoyed your position." Although the words are not accusatory, the tone definitely is, her emerald green eyes flashing dangerously like wildfire, Pollux's body tensing up under the stare.

Too many tributes have looked at him like that, just like that, in such a way where he feels like he's a monster, but there's no way he's the worst enemy in all of this. Not after what he's done, not after what he did for Rennie by sending the footage of his confession to the reapings. He is the catalyst, he is the one who has made waves and tossed the skipping stone across the water, but if someone wants to all of a sudden turn on him? Pollux Aetos is not confident in saying what he wants to do is going to be without bloodshed.

"Well, I can't lie and say I don't like my job," his voice is on thin ice, he raising his head. "It was my job to be the face of Panem's PR, and to interview the tributes, and unless I wanted my tongue cut out, I did my job. Life isn't just black and white." Living in the Capitol has made him far more fortunate than most, unbelievably so, but even the Capitol is no walking paradise where one can just frolic through flowers and such. It is a garden, sure, with poison ivy that laces and wraps around your throat, squeezing the life out of you one kiss after the other.

"You don't have to patronize her, Pollux," Criston shakes his head.

Pollux's gaze ricochets towards the victor. Why is he defending her? Why is anyone going after him now? "Criston, I remember your interview," At that mention, the guy from Six straightens his back away from the window, turning to face him, resting his elbow against the wall. "Lewlyn would want us to archive every interview after the Games were over, and do it each year for the files," A slight raise of his lips into a smirk. "You peed your pants on stage."

"Yeah... because my district partner threatened to strangle me with my own guts right before it," Criston's voice is deadpan, unblinking, but in a moment of relieved tension, Ciphra giggles to herself, covering her mouth with her hands.

"What did you do to her again?"

"Tripped into the yogurt station in the lunch room, and the Careers got to see her covered in strawberry yogurt," there's a slight twinkle in the boy's eyes now, a reminiscent glitter, as it would've been eight years ago at this point, almost nine, when that had happened. That is something Criston mentions in his interview, thirteen then, but that darkness in his eyes is there whether he wishes to deny it or not. The darkness is still inside him, but Pollux knows he'll never admit it. "I was trying to say sorry through all the laughs and the Careers were watching, and I think she wanted to be one of them and well..."

"Lewlyn had specifically tried to tell me to get the Careers off of her, cause she wanted to see the fireworks explode if the Careers allied with her," Pollux says, and then he finds his body starting to shake, needing to take a seat. "That was before..." his words fail him for a second time in a conversation, squeezing his eyes shut. "Before she came to her senses, when she loved the Games with every fiber of her being. She loved the bloodshed, the blades and the screams, and she loved seeing it play through Rennie's eyes." When he opens them, his voice is raspy, his hands shaking. Pollux clenches them onto his leg.

Nine years ago... when Pollux thinks back to what he had been like nine years ago, his drinking problem had been at an all-time high, his ego even higher than that, disrespecting anyone who'd get near him that as so much _dressed _the wrong way. What a man he had been back then. What a man Rennie had been back then, before the cutting of his tongue. The two men hadn't interacted a lot then, with Rennie still learning how to write, playing his violin in sold out concert halls, some saying he had become more famous than the Master of Ceremonies himself, but is Lewlyn who is the real monster of the trio, from the sounds of her laughter rising through the floorboards in the Gamemaker Center, to the foam that spews from her mouth whenever her favorite Career would end up dying...

What changed her?

What changed _him? _

"What made you have a change of heart, Pollux?" Ciphra asks, the accusing tone void in her voice, as if she had read his thoughts.

"Huh?" he looks up, absentmindedly, having started to stare at his hands.

"I assumed you were always for the Capitol, when I'd watch you back home," the girl comments. "What made you switch sides?" There is nothing volatile about her question, pure radiance and curiosity emanating from her. Ciphra had been one of his favorite interviews, where she had just been herself, instead of turning into a hard-ass or someone who had an ounce of bravery, and a whole lot of stupidity wrapped up in their bodies.

"Truthfully?" he ventures forth, earning a nod from Ciphra, "I am not so sure, actually. It might've been a slow thing to happen, but it did get depressing year after year interviewing some really beautiful kids and knowing that they wouldn't be coming back, twenty-three of them year after year, and sometimes the kids that didn't survive..." his voice falls down into a whisper, one hand curling around the end of the couch. He's seen many of those types of victors, a Career who'd be doing it just for the glory, or one wanting to rack up a kill streak. He despises Kevia Janelle the moment he sets eyes on her for her interview, and while the feeling has definitely lessened over time, she'd be one of those people he felt didn't deserve the praise or the love. "I knew they wouldn't deserve it, surviving."

"You mean winning?" Ciphra frowns, furrowing her eyebrows together.

"Surviving," he locks eyes with her, making the girl shudder. "No one wins the Games; you just survive them. Or at least, that's what Calhoun told me once, when he had been in his cups," And now he is no longer in his cups, but rotting away, rotting, rotting, rotting away with nothing but the fish to eat on his decomposing remains. "I think that was one of the final straws though. Bonnie and I had a pretty close relationship, but Calhoun and I were best friends; I knew him for almost my entire life, and then she killed him, and I _knew _she did... I could feel it," He still has no idea why he didn't cry, Pollux has never been one to be fully emotional in that respect, one to cry his problems away, but he doesn't cry, even when Bonnie holds an immediate makeshift funeral for him the day before the reaping on the balcony, but there's no body that he's looking at. It's his best friend's name scrawled into a piece of paper, and he finds the piece of paper later crushed up and in the trash. "And then Rennie made his video, after confirming the suspicion that Calhoun and Lewlyn wanted to end the Games, something we didn't need in this country any longer, and I couldn't stay dormant any longer."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Aetos," Ciphra says softly.

"Thank you, Ciphra," Pollux nods, wiping at his cheeks despite there not being any tears. He needs to do this, he needs to do this, not just for Panem, not just for Lewlyn, not just for himself... but for Calhoun, for the man he failed, and for the woman he allowed to take his place. The interviewer looks at his wrist, at his watch, having counted the seconds go by in his head. A lump forms in his throat. It is time. "Are you ready? Rennie said we'd need to do this fifteen minutes after they left, and it's been fifteen minutes."

"I can hear gunfire. I don't know where, but I hear it," Criston says, almost like a second thought, going back to check the windows. From their vantage point, despite it being such an amazing place in the city, all Pollux can see are the smoky craters from Gamemakers Square where the battle had taken place, and if there's anything else that's been happening, he can't tell. There are the makings of some fires brewing and building, but their origin, Pollux is unsure of. "Whatever must be done must be done now."

Ciphra is at the console immediately, fingers clacking away at the keys. Pollux goes over to the light switch near the front door. Turning on a light now cannot be any more dangerous than anything else they've ever done during all of this, and there's only one way to find out. If the girl's words are to be believed, every light will turn off, casting them into darkness, the entirety of Sector A, including the Gamemaker Center and the mansion, which Rennie should be reaching any second now. "The file is already pulled up, I just have to..." Ciphra mutters to herself, pulling up another file, and then, clicking away at a few more screens, "There!" she shouts.

He and Criston rush next to her, staring at the computer screen, where a flashing red text box with the word _TERMINATE _glows back at them.

"Do it, Ciphra," Criston shakes the girl by the shoulders. "Do it!"

Ciphra moves the mouse over to the text box, clicking on it. For a split second, it is almost as if nothing happens, and then a loading bar flashes in front of the text box, a blue bar filling up the allocated space as it crawls from one end to the other, Pollux leaning forward, eyes just a few inches away from the screen, but there is nothing else for him to do except stand there and wait, to stand there and wait and prepare himself for the untimely doom should nothing happen. If it doesn't happen, then that means Bonnie knows Rennie is coming for her and will have every piece of backup at her disposal. If it fails, then Valencia has to break her way into the Gamemaker Center, where Constantine could lure the girl into a trap. The blue bar fills up the loading screen, and the computer screen goes dark, the three in the apartment sucking in their breath.

The lights of the apartment go down too, a heavy shudder encompassing the building as if a circuit breaker and a generator blew. Pollux looks up at the ceiling, at the lights, waiting, waiting, waiting. Under normal circumstances, a power outage would have it be so the backups would come on, and as he stares at the ceiling with his bated breath, his efforts and anxiety is rewarded when the lights do not spark back on with their bluish glow, the sign that the backup power is up and running.

Pollux can hardly hear his own voice over the roar of his heartbeat. "I hate to be a downer and all, but I almost thought that it wouldn't work."

Ciphra steps away from the console, hands raised as if the metallic structure were about to combust and explode in her face. "What do we do now?"

Criston rushes back to the blinds, peeking out of them. Pollux joins him, looking out. The entire city has gone dark in their sector. Every electronic billboard flashing their faces as wanted criminals, every street lamp. Every electronic door is kicked open, yet there's not a soul around to see it. "The mansion is disabled, and that means defenses for other systems are lax too, but Bonnie or Constantine or Lazarus are going to know where the signal came from. We can't stay here," the victor says decisively, hands going to his waist, fingers clenching around his gun.

Pollux flinches when he swings the weapon around, as he's only armed with a small blade, but he's never even had to use it... he couldn't do it, unlike what Criston could do if he were armed to the teeth. He thinks over the man's words.

"Should we split up?" he asks.

"I'd say that's the best," Criston nods his head. "Ciphra, I want you to stick with me. Pollux, I assume you're going to go after Rennie, Vivian, and Ponty?"

"What makes you think that?" Pollux wants to shake his head back and forth, startled and stuck in surprise. What- how? He knows he had protested it hotly, when Rennie decides to leave, but he... Pollux closes his mouth. He's right. He has to go after someone, and maybe he could be the one who ends up saving Rennie from the vicious blonde viper.

"I can see it in your eyes. You don't want him to die," Criston comments, an added sadness in his voice.

"And we're going to go after Valencia?" The girl from Three rocks back in place, but she's not armed with anything. Weapons are not her specialty, apparently. Words are, but Pollux thinks that's just bullshit.

"I might not be a fighter, but I think I can take an old woman," the victor snickers slightly, holding onto the gun, cocking the chamber back, but he does not rest his fingers on the trigger. "Pollux, are you ready?"

"People got to stop asking me that question, the answer is always going to be the same," Pollux laughs to himself, heartbeat racing in his chest. "No, I am not ready."

It's judgement day, and Pollux is going to ensure his name is not found in the holy book.

* * *

**_Valencia Shale: Victor of the 100th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

Leaving early has done nothing for her confidence. Valencia holds onto the hilt of her sword, staring up at the Gamemaker Center which is in impressive in its four foot story height, a gleaming white building in an ovoid shape, the white paint getting stained with dirt and mud and ash, a lot of ash as Valencia gets closer and closer to it. She left early, thinking she'd be able to get ahead of the Peacekeeper patrols, but even then it is not enough, having to duck into four different alleyways, each time more desperate and closer than the last. She has no idea where she's going anymore, never being on this side of the city often, for she never spent much time in the Capitol that isn't between her glass house - that has probably been destroyed by this point - and the mansion, and with the training center gone, the little sense of direction that she has evaporates.

Valencia leaves an hour earlier than the others would be for their ordeals, and finds herself taking a single step a minute, paralyzed out of fear. She holds onto the sword again, getting closer and closer to the Gamemaker Center, as the darkening sky bleeds away into a lighter shine on the gravel. Her shoes scuffle against the concrete, inching towards the building, before running over and flattening herself against the side of the building, the cool metal prickly on her skin as goosebumps erupt all over her arms. She takes a deep breath, going to right herself off of the surface, when she pauses, taking a look around the street. There hasn't been a Peacekeeper patrol in the last ten minutes, where normally a squadron or pair of two will walk by every five minutes, all the hair on her arms standing up straight as if a lightning bolt had crashed into the ground right next to her.

She takes a look up at the street lights, realizing with sudden clarity that they're all dark, and despite it being fairly early in the morning, around ten in the morning or so, which it feels more like the morning and not around noon, that all the lights are off, even those that had been on during her walk... and that means only one thing.

"_Power's out. That must mean Pollux and the others used the shutdown code..."_ Valencia thinks to herself, rounding to the front of the Gamemaker Center. The electronic doors slide open, with the power being out, and they do not close as she gets closer to them. It's worked, it's worked! She breaks into a slight smile, looking at the top of the archway that she steps under. Written in a gold font is something she can't read, it most likely being Latin, finding plenty of that around the Capitol in their golden font that they love so much. Her lessons are extremely rusty, the words all foreign to her. _Hic nos pie praestare acts. _She looks over to the translation next to it, written in the symbolic blood red font, the words interconnected as if someone had written it in cursive. Valencia's eyes scan over the words, mouthing them to herself silently. 'Here, we perform godly acts' is what the translation reads, a chill washing over her body as she takes another step through the foyer. "_I've__ never been in here. It's like you can feel the evilness seeping from the walls." _

The walls emanate darkness, as if they're actively vibrating, churned by a dark energy. Valencia's shoes make ghastly echoes on the floor as she takes another step forward, jumping slightly at the sound. It is as if she is back in the arena, venturing into the Hall of Mystery, when the Career pack ended, as Marcus's shout of betrayal and the monster roar is hot on her heels, when his arrow slices through the air and cuts Maisey's life short... it cuts her own life short. Except this time it is just her, just her by her lonesome, and she's all alone, to face the darkness that is inside. It is a better situation than the last time, when she had gone into the Hall of Mystery alone... there's no blood on the floor, as far as she is aware, taking it just one step at a time, the darkness coming in to consume her whole.

If only Persephone could be with her now, if only. She'd be able to make this all right, be able to help make sense of all of this.

Her chest is seized with a cold embrace, causing her to stand still. "In and out Valencia, just in and out..." she tells herself, "You can do this," the grip on her sword goes lax, she having gripped onto it like she's in rigor mortis, but her heartbeat is still very much alive as she feels the drumming in her chest, the roar in her ears. "You survived the Hunger Games and a trash can mutt. How much harm can an old woman even do?" Valencia chuckles slightly, amid the darkness in her words. It is the truth. The arena is designed to be everyone's worst fears, even moreso for a Career turned victor... this should be like stealing cake or candy from a baby. She's lying to herself, but there's no one around to call her out on it otherwise. "_You know the answer to that one, little girl. Or are you stupid?" _

She's not stupid, Valencia knows she isn't. Reckless, perhaps. Headstrong, definitely.

Valencia takes a large step over a pane of shattered glass, it most likely having wrapped around the reception desk that is sitting empty next to her, the black office chair wrapped up in leather knocked over, one of its spokes spinning in the air as if someone had just run by it and pushed the wheel. She holds her sword out against it, bracing herself should anything jump at her from the shadows, but all she can hear is the sound of her voice. Two potted plants lie on either side to the doorway in front of her, glass doors that are wide open, silently beckoning her forward. The plants are knocked over, dirt spilling onto the normally polished and perfect tile floor, she sheathing her sword back together. Valencia is prepared to climb throughout all four floors of the Center if she has to, but Constantine must be here, for there is nowhere else for the woman to go to.

Can she see her?

She's probably watching her right now, Valencia pausing in her tracks again as she takes her first step through the glass doors to the main part of the Gamemaker Center. The victor has seen it before, just once, when Bonnie shows it to her during one of their council sessions, but all Valencia can think about then is the way the president styles her hair, a pang running through the girl that the president has the same haircut that she did, a wavy kind of braid, where it rests up against her shoulder, and that is all the girl can look at, despite being showed the room, with all of the employed Gamemakers at work.

It is empty now, her steps making more echoes against the white walls, she stepping over another knocked over plant. Two slopes spill out from the main level, the basement floor being below her, all the Gamemaker computers and consoles turned off, but Valencia is unsure if that is due to the power outage or not. Some of the chairs are left from when many of the workers must've left for the day, a few are knocked over with their wheels still spinning, but there is one chair that is pushed all the way back, at the front of all of the desks, a lump forming in her throat. There's no mistaking who that desk belongs to, for it is also the largest of the bunch.

The Head Gamemaker's.

Valencia goes down the left slope, placing one hand at her hip. Criston's gun that he handed to her that night is still there, and she's yet to even fire it, unsure if she'd even be able to, by the way the malice seems to waft off of it. She recalls telling him that, and the way his eyebrows bridged together in disappointment at her disposition, shame filling her body to the brim, and the little bit of room left for emotion has been taken up by fear. Her breathing becomes more shallow, she inching closer and closer to the basement level to be at the other vacant desks. The monitor wall is also dark, another pang running through Valencia's body. She's never seen that, the screens are always on. Always surveilling, always watching. Ciphra hadn't lied to them at all, but-

"This must be your first time here, isn't it?" comes a very familiar female voice rather out of the blue, Valencia jumping in place, stopping dead at the base of the ramp, a yelp escaping her lips. Standing just at the base of the wall of monitors, at the control panel all the way in the front, where one would have to crane their neck to look up at screens, to the point of breaking them, is Constantine Fallorne. The older woman turns around to face her, she having been bent over the console, Valencia's eyes entirely missing her as the woman is dressed all in gray, blending in the with the metal. "Well, let me be the first to welcome you to the Gamemaker Center!" Valencia's hands immediately go for her sword, her breathing starting to return to normal, Constantine's eyes falling over her, making a cooing noise in her throat. "Oh? Did I frighten you? I'm terribly sorry, it's just with my cataracts, I can't tell if you're a person or an abomination from here in the dark."

Valencia straightens her back, trying to lift her chin up in confidence. She's a victor, this woman is a washed up hag. She cannot hurt her, just like how Lewlyn couldn't hurt her all those days and weeks ago. "Hello, Constantine," she says, in as much of a respectful tone as she could manage. Despicable, sure, but an elder all the same.

"That's a Ms. Fallorne to you, sweetie," Constantine's voice is dismissive, the woman smiling wryly, her lips firmly pressed together, Valencia's body shuddering. "Besides, drop the pretenses, I know why you're here."

Smarter than she looks, at the very least. That should be a good thing.

"Then there's no need for a game of cat and mouse?" the victor raises an eyebrow, taking another step off of the ramp. Despite the power being out, which means the air conditioning should be out as well, Valencia is freezing cold, trying to resist the urge to grip her shoulders and rub her hands up and down to warm herself up. She cannot afford to show any signs of weakness; weakness is how the Capitol gets to someone, to exploit them for some sort of sick and twisted game.

Constantine tilts her head back and laughs, a hearty laugh at that which echoes and echoes against the walls, but Valencia stays still. She's cried and jumped enough times in her youth now, keeping her gaze directly on the old woman. The alder. "No, I quite prefer the game of cat and mouse," Constantine runs one hand along the outer edge of the console, her fingernails painted a bright ruby red, the color jumping out at Valencia... it looks like the color of Peri's hair, the last fleeting moment Valencia can recall before chopping her neck up with an axe. "After all, I am going to be the one saving this country from its own ruin. Bonnie hit that victor's kid yesterday and doing that put her in some sort of funky loop, it threw her off her game," the woman's nose crinkles, Valencia daring to take another step forward. "She's been sitting in the mansion getting drunk and having other people look after her baby because she's so scared of hurting another child," A light scoff. "She's weak."

Valencia can almost not believe what she's hearing, a woman who is supposed to be so devoted to her superiors speaking about them in such a way, but it must be her naivete getting the best of her. "I thought Bonnie was your president,"

"She was yours too, once upon a time girlie," Constantine's eyes flash dangerously back at her, a sharp chill sliding down the victor's spine. "But I suppose there's no sense in me trying to speak logic to you; you let that Avox whittle his way into your brain and speak lies and deceits," she flicks a piece of dust off of the counter, looking at her nails. "I mean, I knew teenage girls were stupid, but not that stupid."

Mocking her. The woman has the audacity to _mock _her.

"I'm _not stupid!" _Valencia shouts, her face getting heated up, and she takes yet again another step. She could do it. Galiant and Peri, when she murdered them, that had been for the Games, for her own survival. Constantine is a little leech, sucking blood and dreams and hope away from whomever the woman can sink her teeth into. She's been accused of being stupid her entire life, for being blonde and shapely and being a girl, and being from District 1, where she's looked down upon for not coming out of the upper echelons of life... she is not stupid, the barbed insult sinking into her skin with the ferocity of a thousand suns.

"Having to yell at me to get your point across is going to prove things otherwise, darling."

"I'm not your darling, or your sweetie, or anything else other than Valencia to you, Constantine," the victor bares her teeth in a hiss, getting another step closer to the woman. About seven feet or so separates her from the Head Gamemaker, keeping herself at a distance, eyes searching for all other exits. She's heard Kevia and Lance tell her on multiple occasions that you can beat the girl out of a Career, but unable to beat the Career out of a girl, the excitement and adrenaline and anxiety hidden away in her body rising to the surface. "You better get that through your head, before I cut it off," she threatens, hand going to the hilt of her sword.

Bonnie should've never let her keep the weapon, the weapon from her days in the arena will save Panem, and it shall not be used to torment her any longer.

"Swords are useless here, Valencia," Constantine makes a tutting noise in her throat. "Besides, you wouldn't want to kill me. I'm your biggest fan after all, I told you so," the woman bats her eyelashes at her, smiling sweetly, a sickeningly sweet grin that sinks its fangs into her neck, pumping her up with a confectionary feel, a cotton candy poison that mixes into her blood.

"Bonnie's my biggest fan," the victor corrects. The president had even said it to her face once, she had been her favorite in the arena. Bonnie is the reason she didn't die that night in the arena when it had been between her and Linden in the vote-off. It had all been her, where she should be kissing that woman's boots, but Valencia would rather face a million Peri's in battle with a flaming axe as her end than that.

Constantine laughs to herself again, eyes lighting up with mirth. Danger, the hair standing up on Valencia's arms. "Bonnie wants to be you, child. There's a difference," the statement is forward and accusatory, as if the Head Gamemaker were talking to Bonnie and not to her. "I liked you because you were able to do your job without complaining, without having anyone tell you what to do, and showed that you were a good leader," Constantine's eyes flick over the girl again, disgust evident in them, her salmon colored eyes from contacts, the woman still not having swapped them out for a different color. "And then you let your guard down and let your district partner who betrayed you back into your life, and we all know how that turned out..." her voice trails off in a singsong fashion, eyes dancing around and up to the ceiling. "Maybe you're just a faulty wiring system, instead of the Career victor I mistook you to be."

A lump fills in Valencia's throat, cutting off her breathing for a moment.

She hasn't heard anyone ever say that to her. It has always been words of congratulations, words of talking about her bravery and her success... all the negativity in Valencia's life has come from _her, _and not from anyone else.

The victor tightens her grip on the sword. If only she hadn't been so far away... "Shut up," Valencia hisses. "Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!" She is shouting now, louder than she's ever yelled at someone, unable to even remember the last time she's raised her voice in that manner. As if Constantine is holding her voodoo doll, stabbing one pin near her head, a headache starting to build in the center of her forehead, but she cannot drop her guard. She cannot let go of her sword.

"You told Marcus that very same thing in the Hall of Mystery when you saw his ghost," the Head Gamemaker smiles cruelly. A blurt of Marcus's face flashes by Valencia's eyes, she squeezing them shut. No, no _not again. _His haunting words echo in her head, the same sneers he yelled at her during the finale, but she triumphs over them. Even in her head, Valencia cannot escape the darkness, she cannot escape the truth. _You're weak. You're a failure. You cannot save yourself, what makes you think you can save the world._ "I couldn't stop myself from laughing, seeing the way you had tipped over and were rocking back and forth like a shitting dog," Constantine smirks, Valencia forcing herself to open her eyes again, the glimpse of Marcus vanishing into the gray walls. He's a corpse, and she's very much alive... what harm can he ever do to her? "Valencia, put the sword away, and let's talk like grownups," the older woman shakes her head back and forth. "You're not going to get to do what you came here for."

She's losing ground. Valencia can see when a race is getting away from her, when the reins are staring to slip.

"I like to believe you're a smart woman. You can tell when the fight is lost," Valencia takes another cautionary step forward, taking her hand off of her weapon.

"Oh, yes, I can definitely see the writing on the wall and know Bonnie's lifespan runs shorter and shorter by the minutes," Constantine waves one hand back and forth absentmindedly. "I know that Head Peacekeeper Lazarus is dead underground with Kevia Janelle's body rotting right next to his," Valencia stops in her tracks once more, eyes widening instantly. _What did she just say? _"Oh, you didn't know that? I've been spying on everyone in the entire city from here. Hale and Kevia and Hector went to go and rescue Hale's kids, so I let Lazarus know where they were," the smile on the woman's face is the catalyst for the tears that start to slide down Valencia's face. "You should've seen the way Lazarus's body started twitching the moment Lance struck his knife into his nervous system."

"Kev- Kevia's dead?" Valencia's voice is impossibly soft, just barely over a whisper.

Dead. Kevia Janelle dead. The woman had her issues, for sure, but... Valencia almost falls to the ground, needing to steady herself by taking out her sword, planting it onto the tile, the tip scratching up against the paneling, but the sound is not near awful enough to the scream unleashed inside her head. The last time she saw her mentor, the woman had said goodbye to her with Hector and Hale in her company, hands gripped tight. Something about becoming the woman she's always needed to become, and not in a year, but at that moment, for she is more important to than the rebellion than she thinks.

All of that, to end up dead. No, she must be lying. Constantine has to be lying.

Valencia starts to shake like, well, like a shitting dog, hands vibrating against the hilt of her sword, her gaze falling to the floor, away from Constantine's predatory stare. "Oh, I know she meant a lot to you, but she had it coming," the woman keeps on talking. "She's the reason all of this started, actually, by stealing one of Bonnie's fashion accessories from her grandmother, you know," Valencia knew that, but _no, _she cannot put all of this blame on a woman who has been trying to right her actions. She... she _cannot... _"Of course Kevia would never admit it, she's too prideful for that, but I'm getting off topic," Constantine taps her fingers on the console, nails clacking away in a rhythmic motion that she breaks every few rounds. Chaotic rhythm, if there is such a thing. "You're here to kill me."

"Or save you, if you'll come with me," Valencia finds her words, her throat going dry.

"They'd hang me the moment they're given the chance to," Constantine says, adding another wave of the hand. "I'm not a fool or an idiot, Miss Shale, there's nothing I could say or do that would have Rennie Davis or Pollux Aetos or any of your victor friends spare me, not after what I've done," another smile cruelly dances on her lips. "I watched Hector suffer in agony on a poison spray, I betrayed Bonnie's orders and had the Peacekeepers destroy the training center, I spawned the mutts that brought those tributes up out of the sewers... all from right here." The woman stretches her arms out wide, doing a circular motion with her body, but she keeps herself firmly pressed against the console, her back turned to the wall of monitors and screens.

Evil incarnate, that is what Constantine is, Valencia thinks. Evil incarnate given a human form right in front of her.

"Why?" she finds herself asking, which is perhaps the stupidest question she could ever muster.

"Why?" Constantine tilts her head to the side like a cat's, lips curling up in a disbelieving look. "Sweet girl, you cannot be serious. What's the one thing I told you during the Private Sessions?"

"You love chaos," Valencia recants, the memory coming to the forefront of her thoughts instantly. Perhaps the strangest conversation she's ever been a part of.

"I love chaos, Valencia, and chaos is the reason why I am still alive," Constantine smiles, her hands going to her side, right hand, on Valencia's left, rising, rising, rising, before resting on the console. "Even if you do somehow kill me, you'll be out of time before you run through me with that sword," her hand glides back behind her, the Head Gamemaker moving back with the movement as well, one hand resting on a button next to a keyboard panel, and what looks to be a power button above that. "Bonnie had a failsafe, and I have mine..." Constantine locks eyes with Valencia, a paralyzing agony washing over the victor's body.

She is unsure where to look, her eyes dancing back and forth to the Head Gamemaker and the button. It is bronze in color, raised slightly off of the surface of the console, several stripes of gold running from the button to the left of the console, connecting to a panel raised slightly off of the wall, the panel resting up against a door, Valencia having entirely missed it when walking in.

"What does that do?" she asks, fear creeping up in her voice. She has an idea, too scared to bring it forward.

Constantine's eyes twinkle with mischief, the older woman looking like she's age seven than sixty-seven, another telling grin replacing the dour look on her face, her body buzzing with excitement. "I told you about the mutt tunnels as well, in our conversation, I'm sure I did," Valencia remembers that as well, chaos being a ladder and a pit and opportune... and that she must be shown the mutt tunnels. Vivian and Ponty and the others, they had spoken about running across mutts to represent vampires from a novel that she's never read, it being the reason they're kicked into the Phoenix's quarters, and that had just been one mutt design meant for the arena, where there is normally at least two. Bonnie had told her once upon a time that the mutt tunnels stretched on for miles under the Capitol, going as far some would say to the outer edge of the dam just near the train station, a level beneath the sewers level where Rennie planted the Underground Defense. "They're just down there, through that door, an underground tunnel system filled with cages and cages of beasts I can choose from, and I am going to unleash them all," Constantine says, then pointing at the closed door. "I push this button, it connects to the panel, the door unlocks, and all of the mutts and their cages are released. Your little power outage trick, while genius, had one little loophole there, since after all it would be way too dangerous to just unleash a group of mutts onto the Capitol streets."

"Unleash them all..." Valencia repeats, eyes widening, Death's embrace sliding over her body. A slow, black tide running to consume everyone whole. Ciphra had told her and the other gathered tributes in their company about a dream she had, a dark cloud swallowing the Capitol whole, believing it to just be a nightmare and her nerves getting to her, but... what if...?

"On the Capitol. Sure, they'll be killing Capitol citizens, but it is not like they've been much help during all of this," Constantine says dismissively, shrugging her shoulders. "You can kill me, sure, go right ahead, but there won't be enough of you rebels and enough weapons and guns and blades or any of it to stop these monsters from killing everyone," The woman is right. With how many lives have been lost, and the rebel forces scattered to the wind, and whatever orders Bonnie have made, if the tunnels are believed to hold as many monsters as the rumors contain... there'd be no one left alive in Panem. She remembers how unstoppable the trash can mutation had been in the arena, it taking Annabellina to sacrifice herself in the explosion for it to finally kill... that monster could've rolled over everyone in its path, and then some. What would an army of those devils be able to do? "And if you let me live, I'll let you live. The beasts won't harm me, they know I've helped create them after all," Constantine resumes her tapping on the console, voice vibrating with power. "And with Bonnie dead, and Rennie dead, and Pollux dead, and Lazarus dead, and everyone else dead, I'll take my rightful place in the presidency," that making Valencia look right at the older woman.

"In the presidency?"

"I've served this nation for a long time, girl. It's about time I've reaped what I've sewn," Constantine's smile turns into a sneer. "Chaos allows me to be queen of the ashes, and I don't care if it's one pile of ash or a thousand. I've earned it."

"You're a monster..." Valencia whispers.

"I'm the one saving Panem, all you've done is help destroy it."

"That's a lie!" the victoress shouts, taking her sword out of her scabbard, raising it high as she takes another step. She could do it, she could totally do it, cut the woman down, save... save the nation. Save herself. She'd be written into ballads and songs for eternity. This is her destiny, this is the destiny she can forge right now with the right hand.

"One step closer and I push the button," Constantine warns, fingers getting dangerously close to the rounded surface. "You know I have it in me to do it," That is no idle threat. That is the truth. The Head Gamemaker tilts her to the side again, Valencia frozen in place, rutting back and forth like a boat stuck between a rock and a moving stream, unable to break free. "And then you can chalk it up to another failure of yours, another thing you couldn't save," The two lock eyes, Valencia nearly dropping the sword. There is hate in the older woman's eyes. Pure, unaltered hate. "You couldn't save Marcus from himself. You won't be able to save Panem when I push this button... you couldn't save your dignity... you couldn't save Persephone."

That is the blow that does make her drop the sword.

"Seph..." Valencia says, tears immediately welling in her eyes. Persephone Castor, the queen of the Underworld, the queen of _her _Underworld, where they'd dance under a waterfall forever and ever with one another, eating blackberries out of each other's hand, and how tender the girl could kiss, how soft her hair is against Valencia's back, the softness of her voice. Her queen, burnt to ashes and bone, where there is no body to send back to District 2, an empty grave without a stone, a plot of dirt.

Constantine takes a step forward away from the console, up to Valencia, who does not move. "Do you remember it, Valencia? It would've only been a year ago tomorrow when she died, when Annabellina burnt her alive with the flamethrower sponsor gift," the older woman is right next to her now, resting a bony hand on her shoulder, whispering devilish secrets in her ear. "Do you remember her dying scream? Do you remember the way her already dark skin burnt to a crisp, or the way it fried her hair?" Persephone's dying scream echoes in her head, Valencia's jaw quivering. The end of her happiness in the Games, a life without the woman she knows she loved, someone that when gone is unable to replaced in her heart, a chamber with an open window and gusts of wind occupying the vacant space. "Do you remember not just her scream, but yours? I've never heard someone scream so loud for someone that you only knew for two weeks... she was just another tribute, another tally or tick in the system... she should be nothing to you, and you know it!"

"Persephone..." the victor drops to her knees, squeezing her eyes shut, throwing her hands over her ears. It hits her like water crashing onto a shore, a shattering vase as it touches the ground, the moment when a blade slices into skin, spilling precious red everywhere. Their last conversation, the last moment the two of them ever shared before she dies, before she wilts away and decomposes.

"_What is the beautiful Valencia Shale thinking about now?" Persephone Castor asks, over the voice of Carrion and Milor's playful bickering in the background. She brings Valencia's left hand, the one she is holding, up to her mouth to kiss._

_Even in the darkness, Valencia's eyes shimmer, and Persephone can see a hint of red appearing on her cheeks. "About what my nightmares will be like," the girl answers honestly._

_Persephone raises a finger. "How your dreams will go, you mean," smiling softly._

_Valencia reciprocates the soft smile. "If you want to think that, sure."_

_Persephone moves a lock of Valencia's hair out of her face, blown over by the wind, and she can see a tinge of pink on Valencia's face. "Try and get some sleep. I promise you, things will be better in the morning."_

The girl from Two disappears behind Valencia's closed eyes, she opening them, her entire body shaking. She holds out one hand, out towards her ghost, who vanishes into the wall. Another thing the Capitol has stolen from her. Constantine looks down at Valencia, the Career broken down into a babbling warrior unable to stand on her two feet. She sniffs in disdain, turning her back to Valencia, walking back to the console, back to the button that'll release the mutts, back to the device that'll bring Panem's doom.

"Now, while you're thinking about your dead lover, I'm going to-" Constantine says, but the rest of it is drowned out in Valencia's head.

Her heart is bleeding, her entire body on fire as if she's been dumped into a vat of lava. Persephone is gone, Marcus is gone. Peri is gone. Kevia is gone. Cyril is gone, Satin she has no idea about her... her family she might not ever see again, or the white buildings of District 1... where she'll die in this forsaken city. Valencia's body is trembling as she slowly gets to her feet, rage coursing through her body, the ledger of red she's been trying to wipe away for months and months without success filling back into view, and all she can see is Constantine Fallorne, an outline of the devil in gray with pink eyes, and the anger that surges in her veins. _Fuck the sword, _death by the sword is overrated now.

Valencia screams out in anguish, a terrifying roar as she takes a lunge towards the Head Gamemaker, causing Constantine to whirl around, but she'll never get to speak again. The victor pulls out Criston's gun by her side, having positioned it so Constantine would be unable to see it should she have ever been circled around, but the Head Gamemaker only stops next to her right ear, not her left. Her hands are trembling, her heart is roaring in her chest with the ferocity of a lion, and Valencia shoots the Head Gamemaker three times in the chest, firing aimlessly, but she makes sure the last shot is up close and personal, gripping onto Constantine's shoulder, holding the shorter, older woman close to her as she hisses in her ear, the red ledger blooming a dark crimson.

"I thought for someone as smart as you, you would've seen that coming."

"There she is," Constantine says breathlessly, staring down at her body, at the liquid spilling out of her as she slips down onto the ground, she looking up at Valencia with wide eyes, soft eyes appraising her, praising her over and over again, truly the biggest fan of them all. "That's the Career in you I've always known was there..." the woman says, before laying her head against the floor, body going still.

Valencia grips the ends of her hair on either side, unleashing a broken yell out of her throat, it coming out with the reverb of crushed glass, straining against the muscles as she collapses, taking one step towards her sword, to grab it and slice her hands open, to join Persephone in the Underworld where they can eat blackberries to their hearts content, or glide and waltz under the waterfall for all eternity... just to kiss her once more, to hold her in her arms once more. She takes one step forward, throwing her gun to the side, not caring where it falls, but as she makes that next step, she falls onto the floor, hitting her head.

She lays there, unmoving, weeping silently, but the scream replays itself over and over again in her head.

"_Birds,"_ she thinks to herself, as if she can hear a canary or a Mockingjays perched on an olive tree branch just outside, on the other side of the wall singing, singing and mocking. "_Birds are singing,"_ her thoughts are mocking, in Persephone's voice._ "Birds will choke on the ash, and they will die, and we will die with them, until nothing remains of our bones, and we seep into the ground..._"

* * *

**_Rennie Davis: Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion P.O.V_**

* * *

His entire body is quaking, Rennie unable to stop his jaw from clattering, or his teeth from grinding against one another as they walk, Ponty Carr on his left, and Vivian Whiplash on his right. They're armed with their respective weapons, the boy from Six holding onto the end of his hammer, it dragging behind him and he picking it up and letting it drag again every few moments. Vivian whirls one of her arrows in her hand, occasionally loading the bow in her hand and pointing it elsewhere as they walk, slipping out a back entrance from the apartment building, and if Rennie times it correctly in his head, it should be exactly fifteen minutes from when they left to when they'll arrive through one of the back doors on the first floor. The mansion is only three floors tall, an oddity considering the Gamemaker Center is taller than it by an extra floor, the mansion supposed to be represent the crown jewel of the city with its tall pillars and fresh coat of white, gold, and red paint cascading down the side.

The first floor has two adjacent staircases on other side of it, the back door their slipping through spitting them out on end of the hall where they need to race to the opposite end and climb the other staircase. The balcony is on the second floor, where the third is supposed to be avox quarters and supplies and whatnot; the basement levels, the plenty of basement levels that have been there since the beginning of Panem's creation, when the Capitol is designed, and if the history books in the library on the first floor are to believed, built by Emrick Israel, the first president of Panem, and his vice president, Cain Passionia during the Dark Days and the rebellion incase of nuclear fallout, a nuclear fallout that never happens, and then the creation of the Games as everyone knows it.

Maybe there should've been a nuclear fallout. Rennie's skin bristles with electricity at the thought. If that had happened, then he wouldn't be alive. His sister would've never been born, Bonnie and Calhoun wouldn't ever have existed if life in Panem were to have ended a hundred years ago on fragile egos and a simple push of a button. They could've become thoughts in the universe, instead of corpses filled with flesh and blood and disappointment and dreams and desires. Rennie places one hand on the inside of his jacket, in which his gun is there. He's running low on ammo, unable to have gotten any more when escaping from the Underground Defense, the Peacekeepers hot on their heels. Every shot he makes must count; it is something he is trained on how to do, fire a weapon, a mandate passed by Head Peacekeeper Lazarus, and not Calhoun. Should the situation arise where there's an assassination attempt on the president or another official with an avox nearby in proximity, and armed Peacekeepers, the Avoxes are then trusted with a gun that'll only fire when aimed at enemies and not those they're sworn to protect and serve.

It's a different gun, one Criston has to smuggle in through back channels in District 6, which pass through District 2 as well where it is nearly caught, but Rennie is holding onto it. He debates bringing a knife, but he gives it to Pollux before he leaves, a million and one words passing between the two men. The streetlights are all out as they pass by them, with Ponty needing to look ahead of himself so he doesn't trip up on his own two feet and run into the light fixture. Rennie's heart beats in his chest at the sight, passing by an electronic billboard that'd most likely have his face on it blotted out in colored pixels that do not form a picture. However, there's only one way to be certain, the mansion getting closer and closer by the way the paved sidewalks beneath their feet begin to change from a grated iron to a more solid white, like the wings of an angel flattened out onto the ground.

"The city's so quiet," Ponty frowns, using his free hand to rub his shoulder. The two tributes are still dressed in their tribute uniforms, and hidden just under his voice, Rennie can hear the sound of gunfire and screams, but they sound distant, coming from behind them. It is problematic, perhaps, panic flaring up in his veins for just a moment, but he exhales a shaky breath to calm himself down. If the two tributes hear it, they don't show it. "It's eerie."

"_It is, indeed. I cannot remember the last time it has ever been this quiet." _Rennie brought his tablet along with him, though he'll drop it somewhere inside the mansion once he reaches Bonnie's quarters. He won't need it then, otherwise it'll simply be a waste of time by then, and he needs every last second he can get. The one part of the city that must not be quiet is where the shooting and screaming is coming from, but it seems to get fainter and fainter as they move away. The mansion is just out of reach, the building silent, all the hair on his arms standing on end. There could be a hundred Peacekeepers left in the city, or there could be fifty... it doesn't matter how many there are, Rennie is going to force himself through them all, and he only needs to make it to the balcony.

With the power out, if it is out, she'll have no way to call for reinforcements.

"Where is everyone?" Vivian asks, her auburn hair tied tightly into a ponytail with that familiar red ribbon back in. Her quiver is sparsely loaded, maybe five or six arrows filling the quiver, which whack into one another and make dinging sounds as the metal rods collide while she runs. The trio is running at a brisk pace, for Rennie knows if he is to run any faster he'll exhaust himself out; he's never been one for full exercise.

"_All told to stay indoors by orders of President Rodney and Head Peacekeeper Pietro, most likely,"_ he takes the time to type it out on his tablet, holding a hand up for them to pause. He bites down on his cheek, a smile slightly ghosting across his lips. "You_ all never heard the announcement, as it was what the president did to draw me out of hiding, because I purposely made sure a supporter of mine got caught with a flyer. They walked into my own trap," _and this time he is full on grinning. Lewlyn had always been intelligent, it in the forefront of the Davis family, in the Davis legacy, but this is also his strength too, when he's sitting in silence, unable to speak. His mind grows instead of his speech, where his eloquence fails him, his brain picks him up the bootstraps.

Vivian wipes some hair out of her eyes, a bead of sweat trickling down her forehead. "But so many people have died because of it, right? The rebellion didn't end in the mansion then, it's lasted, and who knows how many people have died since then..." her eyes are soft, but her voice is strong as she looks at him, a perceived look of justice bearing into him. Rennie's heard rumors... apparently the girl has taken it upon herself to dole justice out to one particular Peacekeeper back home, to earn her the nickname of the Tigress... if that is true, she's showing her colors and her stripes right about now. "Is that worth it, Mr. Davis?"

"_It has to be worth it." _Rennie's response is instantaneous, though he does want to tug on his hair and scream.

"But why?"

"_Otherwise I cannot keep living, and it means I did this for nothing." _he sends back, a noise dying in Vivian's throat, Ponty urging them to not stop again, hands on both of their backs as he nudges them forward. It is the truth, as Rennie reads it over again in his head. Every person that has died, every solider he has sent into battle while he fights alongside them, it has all needed to be worth it, for the legacy of a woman who is trying to do some right out of all of the wrong she's ever created, for the man who spoke by legacy and tradition turning his back on the principles he's always preached to make amends, to do the right thing and for it all to tumble down due to one woman's actions, one jealous woman... who is the fight for if it is not for them?

His fight has been picking up someone else's mantle and placing it on his shoulders.

"The lamps are all off," Ponty comments, as they get closer and closer, Rennie holding out his gun now, cocking back a barrel. He cannot take a shot at someone unless he needs to. "That must mean Ciphra's plan worked."

"_And if things are to be believed, we should be able to just walk right in and-" _Rennie writes out on his tablet, getting close to a back door after hopping over a low fence. He tenses up, feet solid on the ground as Vivian and Ponty hop over the fence too, the door just a few feet from them. Jumping over the fence would normally cause alarms should it be on any other day, or if the security system is up and running, but as they stand there in the daises and roses, crushing mounds of grass beneath their feet, their shaky breaths accompanying the silence, nothing else happens but the fence vibrating back and forth.

Their plan worked, it _worked! _Elation floods into Rennie's system, the same type of elation when Lewlyn frees him from her service that fateful day, as he inches forward towards the door, pushing it open with his left hand, right hand holding onto the hilt of the gun. Vivian goes first, loading an arrow into the bow, tightening her grip on the string as Ponty then goes second, hammer aimed to throw if need be. Rennie shuts the door behind him, the trio now standing on the first floor of the presidential mansion in one of middle hallways, a golden carpet stretching from end to end. There is a staircase just to their left as they step into the center of the carpet, Vivian looking down the hall with her bow loaded. The door closes behind them with a loud roar, causing Rennie to wince, expecting there to be the shattering of glass as Peacekeepers burst through and tackle them to the ground, but nothing happens.

"Okay, this feels all wrong. Where's all the Peacekeepers?" Ponty says, as they head down the hall. Rennie keeps his eyes firmly on the prize, the other staircase nearing one of the bedrooms on the lower floor. Past the staircase which winds up in a spiral pattern to the second floor, there's an open doorway which would be the path to the gardens, the beautiful gardens that he's raced through plenty of times, the same gardens where he vaults off the balcony into after the detonation of Criston's gift... it is all coming back to him now. There should be a Peacekeeper substation halfway down that hall to the gardens, but with the power out, there should be a patrol instead... but Ponty is right, there isn't a single soul besides them as far as he can tell.

"_I don't know. Many of them died in the Gamemakers Square battle, many of them are trying to stop the fighting in the districts, some were sent to a jail cell this morning, and who knows where-" _Rennie starts typing, but then Vivian shouts something unintelligible, causing him to fumble with the tablet in his hands as it falls onto the ground with a thud. The trio were about three-fourths down the hall, their shoes making soft putt noises on the carpet when Vivian draws back her bowstring, the arrow glinting off of a ray of sunlight glinting through an open window.

"I see someone!" she says, voice tense, and true to her word, Rennie can see, just rounding the corner, a bright glimpse of white for a Peacekeeper uniform, he immediately holding out his gun, looking down the barrel as the approaching individual rounds the corner.

"_That's-_" he starts to sign with his free hand, and then he pauses in motion at the sight of the person. Brown hair, helmet off, nose bleeding, a rippling scar also bleeding alongside their face, curly brown hair and a pointed stare, by the way Ponty tenses as the sight of the girl from Six, Amaris O'Hara, dressed in her Peacekeeper gear, and covered with a fine layer of dust, stands in the doorway, her gun out, a knife in her right hand, she breathing heavily, shoulders rising and falling. The trio stands there in silence, looking at the other girl, who stares back at them, everyone unmoving. Rennie can barely reach out and touch the knob of the banister on the staircase, but she could shoot him dead in seconds if she's fast enough, and something is telling him she's fast enough.

Either he's the most unlucky person in the world, or she knew he had been coming.

"Amaris O'Hara," Ponty's voice is as cold as ice, a glacier sliding down a mountaintop as he chucks something to the side, it seeming to be his shoes. "Go on, Mr. Davis, Vivian and I will handle her."

"We will?" Vivian raises an eyebrow.

"Her and I have unfinished business."

Amaris takes another step forward towards them, lowering her weapon, causing Ponty and Vivian to lower theirs, but Rennie does not take his eyes off of the girl. The two of them lock eyes for a moment, he unable to exactly read the emotion in her eyes, but he can tell it amounts to something like suffering, an unbelievable amount of suffering. His ears prick up at an extra noise, it seemingly coming down the hallway from where she had come from. The familiar cackle of a walkie-talkie, the gruff voice of a Peacekeeper, their boots... she had been running away from them, and she's lead them straight to them, and-

What happens next Rennie would've never been able to predict in a million years.

Amaris turns her back to them, rounding the hallway, holding her gun out, taking a shot. A burst of sulfur explodes from the barrel of the gun, a bullet flying free, before there's another hail of gunfire as she moves out of the way. Ponty chokes on a word of surprise, but Vivian simply tightens on her bowstring, rushing to the other side of the door as Amaris takes cover.

"Mr. Davis, this isn't important, but the president is. Go!" the girl from Six looks back at him, her jaw locked, as she then moves out from under cover to stand behind a curtain, reloading her gun from a clip attached at her belt.

"We'll hold them off, Mr. Davis! Go! Go! Go!" Vivian shouts at him, taking a shot, barely moving out of the way as a Peacekeeper barrels through the doorway, getting Amaris's knife stuck in the man's neck, he going down in a gurgle of blood that splatters against his helmet.

"Amaris?!" Ponty's voice rises in a squeak of disbelief at the dead man at his feet.

"Ponty, shut the fuck up and help us!" Amaris shouts at him, and then, looking over at Rennie, who is too shocked to move, "Go, Mr. Davis! She's on the balcony!"

Rennie doesn't need to be commanded twice, he holding onto his gun as he barrels up the second flight of stairs. He trips on one of them, falling down and hitting his chin on the ivory laced wood, looking just to his right out the window when something sails past the window, a streaking plume of ash that creates an explosion seen through another window. Ponty, Vivian, and Amaris have moved out of the way to allow a squadron of Peacekeepers rush by them, Rennie clamoring up another set of stairs to get out of their line of sight, Ponty swinging his hammer into the back of one's skull, a spray of copper rushing to the forefront of the armor.

The avox takes another glance outside the windows and can see Peacekeepers fighting Peacekeepers, he raising an eyebrow as he continues making his way to the second floor, leaving the echoing sounds of the battle beneath him and behind him. Only one more obstacle awaits, the devil awaiting him at the top of the stairs, at the top of the world. If Amaris is to believed, Bonnie should be on the balcony, waiting for him. She would've seen the video, and that means she's come to her senses. The woman is not as stupid as he might've believed her to be.

His body is still shaking, his breathing becoming heavier and heavier as he reaches the top of the stairs. This is it, the second floor of the presidential mansion, and behind one double set of doors would be Bonnie and Calhoun's office, and on the other end of the hall had he gone up the staircase closest to the back entrance used would be their bedroom. Rennie pauses for a moment, in the middle of the living room, a roaring fire built in the fireplace on the far wall, a bookshelf that once had been there replaced by a potted plant in a decanter. Calhoun had died up against that bookshelf he is certain, the one moment before he made the video that sealed his fate being used to enter the mansion, looking for Lewlyn... seeing the other Avoxes who had not been freed scrubbing with sponges and a bucket of water at the copper stain in the wooden paneling.

He's used to seeing his own blood, where every time he goes to sleep, the moment when Lewlyn brings the hot blade down on his tongue and the scarlet flows free flashes to the forefront of his mind, he having to tighten the grip on the covers for the nightmare shot to go away. What will Bonnie's blood look like when he puts a bullet through her skull? Will it be the same shade of red, or will it be a tinted gold of ichor, the nectar of the gods, if Bonnie believes herself to truly be a goddess? The set of double doors leading to the balcony are open, a bit of rubble cleared away from the bomb he had detonated, an Avox that he never learned the name of having planted it there just under Bonnie's desk the night of the tribute parade when the mansion is silent and empty.

This is where it all began, and this is where it'll all end.

Rennie takes a step through the doors, which are already open for him, pausing just on the threshold. The sounds of gunfire and screaming and battle echo from downstairs, but they also echo from outside too, the wind starting to pick up and blow his hair around, copper hair that he'll never replace or change for it is part of him, like his sister is part of him now. He inches forward, one foot on the balcony, the other on the carpet of the living room, eyes bearing into the back of a woman dressed entirely in white, a dress that goes down to her knees, blonde hair left unfurled and untamed. A wreck, a goddess statue sinking into a murky ocean blue.

It's Bonnie, he can tell, standing on her veranda, watching her world burn beneath her. She tenses up as Rennie takes another step, there being the slightly perceptible shift of added weight on the ground.

"The city is on fire," Bonnie says, though she does not turn her around to face him. The president had been leaning over the railing, elbows rested on either side of her, her fists pressed against her head. "The city is on fire and there's nothing I can do about it." Her voice is a harsh whisper, as if she is unable to bring about the truth. If she doesn't speak it into existence, it must not exist, a classic element that Rennie tells himself when the Peacekeepers blot out the blood in his mouth, as he watches Lewlyn through his severed appendage into the fire. She turns around to face him now, he taking a step back, a lump forming in his throat. She's been crying, her eyes bloodshot red, cheeks a flushed pink, and there are even tears flowing down her face now, but it does little to muster sympathy in his stomach.

"_There is something you can do about it." _Rennie resorts to signing to her. If she understands him, then all the better. It'd be silly for him to use the tablet, the instrument she had given him as a matter of fact to speak over Lewlyn's injustices.

"I saw your video," Bonnie looks at him, but she's not looking at him. Looking past, more like, bearing her empty diamond stare into the wall. "Maybe I didn't ever really stand a chance, but-" she tries to say, blinking distantly, as if Bonnie is incapable of conjuring the words into form. _If you do not acknowledge it, it must not exist. _He cannot use that any longer, to try and wipe away what has happened to him. Bonnie must've never tried it either, for there are plenty of things she's refused to acknowledge over the years, when it has all blown up in her face.

"_You know how this ends, Bonnie. There's no more running, no more hiding. It's just you and I and what you've done." _He takes another step towards her, hands going to touch his jacket. All he has to do is take the gun out and shoot her. It can't be that complicated, the woman he has poured all of his hatred into right in front of him on a silver platter, what it has all represented and meant to achieve, but he cannot-

"I only wanted to be president, Rennie. That's all." Bonnie shakes her head back and forth, an explosion causing the entire mansion to shake, a free shingle falling free and at their feet, he kicking it aside. The world is tearing itself apart, but he is unable to focus on that right now, it is just he and the woman he hates, the woman he thought he loved, the woman who betrayed him and everyone else she would've cared about for prestige and power... yet he cannot do it.

"_That's a lie, and you know it,"_ Rennie closes the distance between them, widening his eyes, nostrils flaring. Bonnie flinches as he is on top of her, they at around the same height though he has an inch on her, she not wearing shoes. There's an open flame beneath them, an explosion rippling through a hedge and causing the branches to ignite, a hazy column of smoke rising in the air as he gets closer to her. All it would take is one simple... his mind is incapable of finishing the comment._ "You wanted it all, and Calhoun was in your way, so you killed him. You liked the Hunger Games, so you wanted to keep them,"_ he takes a single step back, his breathing rising and falling. "My_ sister was in your way, so you killed her."_

Bonnie pushes him back, he almost losing his balance, but Rennie rights himself as she begins screaming at him. A conversation they've had plenty of times beforehand, it feeling like a scratching record on repeat. "Your sister cut out your fucking tongue, Rennie! I don't know how many times I have to tell you that you being in love with the woman, who's your _blood, _who fucking mutilated you is something weird and wrong!" She's wrong. She's just jealous. Lewlyn paid for her sins, and never got to make the amends she wanted to as she's killed and- "You and I had something once, you know!"

He should've never tried that fruit, low hanging and sitting there waiting to be unwrapped. It is her that kisses him, that first moment of contact, they being the only two in the Gamemaker Center at the time, he telling her of another awful situation Lewlyn has put him through. Her kiss is like a captured firefly, something he's never been able to do, something he's always wanted. It is a slow kiss, but then she does it again, and he kisses back, placing one hand on her inner thigh. He forgets what he types on the tablet in that moment, or what he tries to mouth at her as she covers his lips with her tongue, but it must not be important for it makes him forget himself. He forgets himself several times over the couple of weeks before the reaping, it being a month and a half before the reaping that'd push Valencia Shale into the spotlight, a piece of kindling to catch fire and help burn half of the city down.

He should've never allowed her to kiss him, but he shouldn't have kissed back. A seed of guilt buries itself into his stomach, but he cannot think of anything else at this moment and time except anger.

"_You wanted me when I was an avox because I had no power to do anything,"_ he tells her, seeing the way Bonnie's eyebrows fall together on her face, lips parting for a moment. "_The moment I was free, you cut me loose!"_

"You're the one who walked away from me in the end! You're the one who went behind my back and changed that trash can mutt in the arena's DNA composition, just to get back at me because I broke up with you!" she screams at him.

He did that, yes, but that is irrelevant now. It is all irrelevant, for the monster she's become, the monster he allowed her to morph into.

"_You were having an affair! I was helping you have an affair on your husband, the president! You think I was just going to let-" _Rennie's fingers move in a furious motion, but neither one of them fall down to his jacket. He tries to focus on her face, but when he looks at her, he doesn't see Bonnie Rodney, the president of Panem. He sees a viper, a vicious viper with a rattling tail standing amid a brush fire, slinking back and forth in her white and ivory body.

"Well, Rennie, it's hard to know what you've wanted since you never told me!"

"_You never asked."_

"This has gotten out of hand," Bonnie's voice trembles, pointing a finger at him, deciding to step forward and thump him in the chest. "You took it too far."

"_I- I took it too far? Do you even hear yourself?" _Rennie barks a laugh, it harsh against his throat, for an avox is never supposed to laugh. They're never supposed to laugh, they're never supposed to express any emotion other than obedience.

"I just wanted to rule, I just wanted to be president and see what all the fuss was about, to rule and hold some actual power, because just being my husband's trophy wife was not enough," Bonnie's voice warps into that of fury, she going back to the balcony railing, to look over her city which is on fire, something silver glinting off of a single ray of sunlight, but he is unable to see what it is as she blocks most of his view in the center. He doesn't believe a word she's saying, the tone is all wrong, filled with filler and falsities. "I loved him enough to get him out of the way, because I could see what it was doing to him, what ruling had been finally turning him into," she shakes her head back and forth. "He had gone soft, wanting to end the Games, and forgiving a woman who hurt you and hurt me, accusing me of infidelity and-"

"_You cheated on him!" _he signs it once, it being something he wants to scream at the top of his lungs, but he can't. His voice will never be heard, his voice will never be heard by those who can use it for better purposes, not when the world ignites and explodes around him. He has to sign the statement again when Bonnie looks back at him, a sneer on her face.

"And you did it right back with me, even though you knew I was married!" she spits at him, acidic and venomous, living up to her name. The Capitol Viper, the rattler and the boa constrictor, and all of the other reptiles in the animal kingdom, all true. He should've never kissed her, should've never touched her, should've plunged a knife into her heart the moment she dares make a move on him. "You can't paint yourself as the good guy here, Rennie."

"_You can't either." _

"You're no freedom fighter, Rennie. They might think you are, but you aren't," Bonnie laughs to herself, getting back up in his face. "You've killed too many people and done too many bad things to consider yourself a hero, and you really want me to tell our daughter that her father is a murderer?"

A beat of sweat rolls down his forehead at her words. It is what keeps him up at night, looking at the muted and washed out grey and green ceilings of the Underground Defense, with the chipped paint as he eats cans and cans of refried beans, or when he sees the bodies of Cambric Vogel and Seth Cables swallowed up by a mortar explosion or when... the moments can go on forever, they can go on forever and ever... has this been worth it? Have enough sacrifices been made when the gravestone is rolled away and he walks into his tomb? Will it ever be enough?

"_That's rich, calling me a murderer as if you-"_ Rennie wants to laugh, and then he pauses, replaying the end bit of what she had just told him._ "What? Our daughter... that her father...?"_

Bonnie's look back at him is one of disbelief. "That child of mine is yours, unless you didn't know that," she says rather absentmindedly, as if she's talking about the weather. "She's going to have your red hair and Calhoun's eyes, and there's no way I'm letting her grow up in a war-torn world all because you-"

"_That baby is mine? Your child is mine?" _Rennie's heart begins to beat faster in his chest, thoughts firing off in his head faster than he is able to piece them together. No, no, no... what is she talking about? That baby is her and Calhoun's and-

"The dates line up perfectly when you think about it, and Calhoun didn't have the gene for red hair, but you do," Bonnie tells him, but there is no happiness in her voice. "It's the last thing I told him before I shot him through the heart, that the baby was yours and not his, and he died knowing that I never loved him, because it felt good to hold that power over him, over the man who for years and years made me feel inferior because he believed I couldn't carry a child, but it had been on _his _impotent shoulders... not mine..." she whispers to herself, anger surging through her voice as she digs her nails into her arm. It had been no secret that the Rodney family couldn't produce a baby, but...

"_You lied to him this entire time? You lied to me this entire time?" _Rennie takes a step back, unable to believe what he is hearing... what he's heard.

He's a father?

The last time they had ever slept together is a whole month before the reaping. She's in white, perhaps even the same dress she is wearing now, her fingers splayed against his face as he ruts against her on their bed, on the bed of the president and the president's wife, adrenaline coursing through the Avox's veins, as if he's caught, he's a dead man, but maybe he wants to be a dead man and end all the suffering, so he lets her kiss him, he lets her unbutton her pants, he lets her cry out against the walls where even the Peacekeepers could probably hear them, but he thinks nothing of it... he thinks that there is something between them that harbors on lust and love, but-

No, that night created a child.

Rage flows through Rennie's veins at the thought, when he hears Bonnie utter a laugh at his face, a shocked expression taking place of whatever else must be there. Calhoun died knowing the truth that his kid had never been his... the man of legacy, and she's proud of that? He's heard Valencia describe a red ledger, but has never understood what it meant, what it had always meant.

Her laugh echoes in his ears, a preened peacock laughing and fluffing her feathers about as if she's won a golden prize. "How do you think the country would react to an avox having a child with the president's wife? You think it was going to go well?" she asks him, but Rennie is too stunned to say anything back to her. "I haven't named her. I wanted you to name her, to put this rebellion mess behind us and-"

"_No... you don't get to let that slide. I came here to have you surrender." _He finds the courage to sign that, as Bonnie backs up against the railing of the second story balcony. It is a fifteen foot drop, maybe more, from the height their at, Rennie seeing through the spokes that a fire is burning her precious garden, a garden she changes when her husband dies into her image, not his, and it is on fire. He wanted a legacy, and she's been burning it all down.

"You know I'm not doing that," Bonnie shakes her head, with a frown.

"_You know I'm not leaving without you surrendering." _He can still do it, she deserves it for all she's done... he could still pull his gun out and shoot her if he had to, but all he can feel is rage. Rage, and sadness, and disbelief, and anger, and more rage, and more sadness, and Lewlyn's tears staining his cheeks...

"Then I suggest we're at an impasse..." the president says, she sounding actually rather sorry, her hands gripping something on the railing, the item he cannot see. "I feel sorry for my daughter, that she has to grow up in a world without a father,"

Before he has time to react, Bonnie lunges forward, pulling the knife off of the railing, the glinting silver item that Rennie catches wind of, he backing up in shock at the sight of her leaping forward. She plunges the knife just below his clavicle, stabbing him in the shoulder. He cries out in pain, his hands flying out of his jacket pocket, fingers loosely slipping around the gun when it falls out of his grasp, he falling onto the ground and lying on his back with her atop him, she blotting out the sun and the smoke and the hazy clouds. White spots of agony blur on the corners of his vision, Rennie making a estranged sound in his throat, Bonnie starting to cry again. As if she were rutting atop of him, to create the child that is stolen away from him, a child he never would've wanted. Not with her, not with anybody.

He can feel the warm blood sliding down his shoulder, as her hands go to reach for the blade again, and if he can react fast enough- Rennie's thoughts are racing through his head at a mile a minute, unable to focus on just one before it breaks through the murky sheen with stunning clarity, wrapped in a bolt of lighting. What it would look like if her gorgeous white dress were to be splattered with crimson, if someone were to strike her with an invisible silver bullet from afar? Would she scream? Would she feel pain? Would it be the same pain that Calhoun felt when he died? Bonnie's lips are parted, as if she's about to say something, leaning over to him, face impossibly close with his, when Rennie wrenches the knife out of his sternum. With a roar that must not be of this world, it coming out of his throat in a guttural beastly tone, he sends the blade up and just between her rib cage, scarlet splattering all over his hands, all over his face, and all over her white dress.

A pale canvas, with a blooming rose.

Bonnie gasps in pain, eyes lightning up in electric shock as Rennie struggles to his feet, holding onto her as tight as he can, pushing her forward, forward, forward, the blade stuck in her side. She is still the gorgeous woman he had wanted upon a time, no matter what she's done he cannot take her beauty away from her, but it does not wash out all the red she's soaked herself in, all the blood she's spilled, and all the lives of people she's ruined. He kisses her, pressing his lips against hers, silencing whatever gasps of pain or utterances of sarcasm she'd want to send his way, he slipping his tongue into her mouth for a second, just a split second. He thinks he tastes like chalk dust and chocolate covered strawberries, she tasting of copper and latex and Calhoun's cologne.

The two break apart, blood mixing in on both of their bodies, his hands slick with crimson, her dress a sea of fabric and blood. A trail of saliva connects their lips, a dainty spiders web before it breaks as Rennie moves his lips.

"_Goodbye, Bonnie._" It is something he mouths, with no tongue to help articulate the words, but he knows she can read his lips too. Bonnie's eyes widen, but it is all she can do as he pushes her as hard as he can, the force sending her over the railing on the balcony. It is more than a fifteen foot fall, it is at least thirty or forty feet, Rennie going off of assumptions, but he takes a step back, as she falls backwards herself, he letting go of her hands, the blade still inside her body as she tumbles down below.

"RENNIE!" she screams, her body falling into the blaze below.

The avox falls to his knees, tears falling free. He's mouthing something, he unsure what it is, but then he finds himself also racing towards the edge of the balcony to vault himself into the fire if must be, to join her in death, to join his sister in death. There's a pair of hands grabbing at him, tugging him back, a male voice that has never been his in his ears, the voice telling him to stop screaming the anguished and pained cry that builds in his throat. All he can hear is Bonnie, all he can taste is Bonnie. He pushes her, and she falls into the fire, her name a syllable on his lips that'll never be uttered, her taste on his lips of salt water and Calhoun and rusted over leaves, as her body is consumed into ash.

As all is consumed into ash, ash, and ash.

* * *

**_Surviving Tributes of the Phoenix Rebellion (Boy - Girl)_**

District 3:** Ciphra Longsdale** [_Submitted by Flammifera_]

District 6: **Ponty Carr** [_Submitted by_ _Queenofinsanity_] / **Amaris O'Hara** [_Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie_]

District 10: **Vivian Whiplash** [_Submitted by_ _SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn_]

...

**_Surviving Capitol Cast_**

_Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion:_ **Rennie Davis**

_Master of Ceremonies: _**Pollux Aetos**

_Victor of the 100th Hunger Games: _**Valencia Shale**

_Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: _**Lance Viel**

_Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: _**Criston Pellock**

_Victor of the 87th Hunger Games:_ **Hale Cornerstone**

* * *

**So, I first off must say... if you are the submitters of Ciphra, Ponty, Amaris, or Vivian, I say congratulations! Your four tributes have been chosen to be the survivors or 'victors' if you will of the Bombs and Bullets cast. I had always planned on having more than one survivor, and the numbers for the longest time were six surviving tributes: Ciphra, Amaris, Vanya, Vivian, Cyril, and Seth/Aris. Then I swapped out Vanya for Ponty, dropped Seth/Aris, briefly considered making Satin a sixth survivor, and then decided to keep my choice of killing Satin, and dropped Cyril off the list, _but _Ciphra, Amaris, and Vivian I always set as surviving, so congratulations! So, Flammifera, Queenofinsanity, LiveFreeOrDie, and SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn, I suppose this means you each have gotten a victor! **

**The Capitol cast, the six I selected, with the exception of Lance, who I considered swapping out for Kevia, initially, were also always there. Each survivor will get a POV in the epilogues, which means just ten more POVs left in this story to write, and that, I cannot believe, is almost here. It was quite the chapter to write and to plan, to get every conversation just right, and where I say goodbye to Constantine, who I loved, and to Bonnie, who I for the longest time believed I could make her immortal, but alas, she is not immortal... I cry a lot when writing, but I cried saying goodbye to her.**

**Here we are, ladies and gentlemen, with Chapter #35: Rennie's Ultimatum, which has brought about the main end to the Bombs and Bullets plotline, for now it is up to these ten characters to pick up the pieces. Both Valencia and Rennie's POVs ended up being 6.6k each which is pure insanity, and I am trying to not to cry, but I am uh, failing at that. It has been a wild ride, and that wild ride is nearly over.**

**Next chapter, which should come out in the very beginning of July is Chapter #36: The Panemian Council, and oh boy, do I have plans for it. I uh, I almost don't know what to say or how to feel, truth be told, now, with reaching this point in the story. If you have stuck with me to now, I hope you stick with me to the very end, which I am planning to have posted by my seventh year anniversary of having a FanFiction account, on July 15th, 2020. Your support is greatly appreciated, as always, and I hope you have an amazing day! I love you all so much! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	36. The Panemian Council (Epilogue I)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #36: The Panemian Council, where we are officially starting off the epilogues that'll eventually bring about the end of Slaughterverse, something I am still reeling from having written all of that so quickly, cause I didn't expect to be at the end ****_already. _****Last chapter, the Phoenix Rebellion came to an end with Valencia shooting Constantine in the Gamemaker Center, Amaris with Vivian and Ponty holding back a Peacekeeper patrol in pursuit, and Rennie's verbal showdown with Bonnie atop the balcony where it had all began... and now we're here, with the survivors to pick up the pieces. Every surviving character gets one single pov each, two for this chapter, four in 37, and four in 38, a mix of tribute and Capitol characters for 37 and 38, this again from just two Capitol character perspectives. It has been a ride that is near the finish line, so I do hope you enjoy Chapter #36: The Panemian Council.**

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_~ And so sayeth the Lord, one day I will call a humble shepherd out of the flock to lead my people, when I have set down the cane and the amble, and am unable to move another step. He is to be your Moses, your Joshua, your Messiah. _

**_Criston Pellock: Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

Tinkering away at something beneath him on a table, Criston forgets to blink, sucked into the world of machinery and batteries and the low swinging light above his head that creaks on its chain every few seconds. He only remembers to blink when the agony in his head begins to build, like someone stabbing an ice pick between his nose and frontal lobe. He blinks, wiping away remnants of sleep that have clung onto his skin with a rubber-like grip. He hasn't slept in twenty four hours, but he's used to staying up after all, so this is nothing for him to worry about. Besides, it's important. His fingers ache and sometimes he has to clench them in pain from the shards of glass he had clutched when tripping over a shattered door, slicing his ankle open, the bandages bleeding the color of a ruby sunset as Ciphra helps him up.

Valencia is sobbing in the center of the floor when he and Ciphra find her, next to Constantine's dead body, a spilling sea of cardinal marking up the tile, the victor practically bathing in it, but he does not dare ask her how much might've gotten in her mouth, and Valencia doesn't seem to feel up to talking by the way she's gone silent. It has been quite a tumultuous thirty-six hours, Rennie awake by the time Pollux finds him on top of the balcony at the presidential mansion, half the grounds on fire with the fighting in the streets, but soon into the day he falls unconscious, lips forming words without sound, Criston finding it rather creepy to be looming over him to see what he's mouthing.

Pollux is the one who is the most upset by the findings, as Lance and Hale scourge the streets looking for survivors and Capitol citizens to rouse out of their homes... it is Hale who finds Bonnie's body, if it can even be called a body at this point. Criston is sure the victor spits on her, just to rub it in some that she's alive and the blonde witch is dead, but he still looks away, unable to take the charred wisps of bright colored hair out of his mind... they are wisps, indeed, representing curved tree branches or a witch's claws. The tributes, the four surviving tributes - a failed mission, when Rennie wishes to keep all twenty-four alive, but Criston knows that is only a fool's dream to try and keep that alive, losses in war are inevitable - are holed up in separate rooms in the mansion, and despite the girl's allegiances, Pollux and Valencia have to call on Amaris O'Hara several times while Ciphra is out speaking to the districts, the only potentially famous kid left for her words to have any weight.

Criston looks up from his work table, which is truthfully just a sink with a small bit of counterspace in the room he's in, eyes going to the medical bed in the corner of the room, the body in the corner starting to stir. The lights on the wall, a dim and lowly lit halcyon color create shadows on the wall in that corner of the room, a gigantic black mass of limbs and unrecognizable shapes shifting in the sky as Rennie Davis, the surviving leader of the Phoenix Rebellion, sits up. He's dressed in a darker ensemble of simple pants and a see through shirt showing his pale skin, hair as red as the still burning fires in the streets, but it is Rennie, no matter how battle damaged he might seem to be. The avox lets out light sigh of pain, his collarbone wrapped in gauze from the stab wound, he trying to swing his legs over the edge before falling back onto his injured shoulder, yelping slightly.

"Hey, you're awake!" Criston exclaims, and then rushes over to him, setting down his tools against the object he is working on. He presses a hand onto Rennie's good shoulder, holding him up behind his left with his hand, until the avox is in a sitting position. "Ooh, easy, easy, easy. I got you." The man feels thin, extremely thin and exhausted, if someone is capable of feeling exhaustion. However, despite whatever someone might want to think, this is the man who led them through the darkness, and did a whole lot more than that.

Rennie's bright blue eyes search his surroundings, falling on the victor's face, momentarily lighting up as his brow furrows together. "_Criston?_" he signs quickly, Criston able to make out just a few of the letters in the rapid fire succession. It is something that Lance had sent him, a book on Panemian Sign Language, but with all the hours Criston spends waking up from nightmares where he's boiled alive in a vat of acid, or working on getting the materials for the bullets to go instead the guns... it is something that falls to the wayside, though he has been getting better.

"Hey, Rennie. How are you feeling?" Criston smiles sweetly, removing himself from Rennie's personal space, taking a step back, his feet echoing around the chamber. It is not a large room, a twelve by twelve foot hospital wing with a gross olive colored tile to match the pale walls, but it is has been Rennie's home lately. All Criston knows if that someone were to ask him the question of how he would be feeling waking up in such a nightmarish place, the answer would be sharply devastating... pissed and upset.

"_Like my body is on fire and I just died." _Rennie smirks somewhat after signing it, placing his right hand on his left shoulder, setting it back somewhat.

"We almost thought you were a goner too, honestly," Criston gives a slight laugh, for the tension in the room he could feel soaking into his ankles. "You were out for almost a day. Pollux is the one who found you; it almost drove him into hysterics." He doesn't need to say it aloud, for he knows that Rennie knows what he did. Pollux claims that their fearless leader had been crying something out, an estranged sound trying to break free in his throat turning it raw, the man clawing his way out of the interviewer's grip to try and vault himself over the balcony into the fire below, but there are no words to try and explain his actions, Pollux is sobbing and trying to keep Rennie at bay, and the man brings himself to exhaustion for it seems to go on for _forever. _

"_What- what happened?_"

Criston runs a hand through his hair, resting against a far wall, the tile cool on his back, causing his skin to bristle with goosebumps. "We won," his throat is dry, he licking his lips while Rennie raises an eyebrow, the man looking down at his feet, which are clothed in wool socks to keep them warm, as it is a bit frigid in the room they've kept him. There is an argument made, Criston forgetting who makes it, that Rennie should be given the biggest room in the mansion to be holed up in, but there are many other injured parties to tend to, and Pollux relents the control of where Rennie goes for recovery. "It's over, Rennie. The rebellion." Just a week ago, Criston recalls telling Lance to not get his hopes up in the fact that there would be a rebellion in the first place, but once again, the man with bright red hair proves to know a trick up his sleeve or two.

Rennie takes a look around the room, frowning. "_Where- where are we?" _

"In the mansion, one of the hospital wings underground," Criston sticks himself off of the wall, pushing his body with his palms. "I know it's a bit smaller and more cramped than I was hoping for initially, but I needed to be here when you woke up."

"_What happened?" _he asks again.

"A rather complicated answer if you ask me," Criston purses his lips, frowning, biting down on his lower lip. He supposes there's no easy way to say it, in case there are any moments of uncertainty and doubt lying around with the situation. "She's gone, Rennie. Her body was found lying just beneath the mansion's terrace in a burnt rosebush, body almost so burnt where you couldn't even recognize it, a burnt knife stuck under her ribcage..." Rennie's hands go to his neck, squeezing the base of his throat, eyes slightly bulging out of his head, fingers brushing over an obstruction attached to the base of his windpipe, it almost hidden out of sight underneath the outfit he has on, but if the avox makes any move to show that he notices it, there's nothing. "Constantine was found dead in the Gamemaker Center with Valencia's crying body next to her, and Lazarus Pietro was found dead in the prison cells..." Criston plucks the name off of his tongue with a pop, lips pursing at the sound. "With them gone, it means our resistance couldn't be resisted any longer."

Rennie locks eyes with the victor, a shiver sliding down Criston's back. A look of haunted remembrance in the man's gaze, he signing his next statement slowly, almost as if he is incapable of bringing the very thought to light. "_And- and her daughter? What of her?" _

Criston smiles wryly, lips pressed together. It is very diplomatic of him to be worried about the child, and it might sound awful in his head, but it is nothing to Criston, about the girl. He wishes her no harm, but it is not a bullet point on his own list of what would make the rebellion a success or not. "She's fine, Rennie. The nursery wing of the mansion was left untouched," he goes back to the work table, grabbing the tool he had been working on in his left hand, knocking a few random bits and pieces into the trash. "Hale and her daughter Arianne are currently looking after her right now, with a few of the mansion's maids."

"_What happened after?" _There's a look of relief on Rennie's face after the mention of the girl being safe, but as to why, Criston is not sure. He did not know the avox personally before most of this began, before there are grumblings from the previous Head Gamemaker of there being the end of the Games, that information only privy to a select few, but then everything else explodes out of his hand with deaths of officials he would've never cared about in the first place, and Rennie's name continues to pop up in the social circle... Criston is proud to say that there is nothing stopping him or holding him back any longer to see their Phoenix for the true bird out of the ashes that he is, the wonderful man he is with a heart of gold, and the one who'd do what needed to be done, such as apparently pushing the president off of a balcony.

After. What a weird word, Criston saying it to himself in his head. After he electrocuted the last few surviving tributes in his arena - the Gamemakers need to learn their lesson and stop doing arenas with a beach or water, someone is going to exploit that little flaw every single time, yet there is surprise passed around whenever that happens, as if these folks do not learn - his after is Criston holding his body tight while his knees dig into the dirt of the cornucopia, having hidden in the farthest corner of the horn armed with a single silver knife, counting the cannon fire in his head, repeating the number over and over again even after Pollux's voice announces him as the victor. The after, _after, _when he is the helicopter and the syringe slips to just below his arm, he's thinking of how much blood he's shed, and how his parents will never hug him again.

What can the after be for a city completely torn apart? A nation flipped upside down and dumped into a volcano?

"After," Criston repeats aloud this time, patting his leg with his hand. "The fighting in the districts was starting to wean down from a few of the sources we had who could tell us what was happening, some getting on lockdown, others where rebels would be fighting back against the Capitol, and since Bonnie didn't have the resources to send Peacekeepers to and from, the forces there had to surrender. It required a mix of Ciphra, Pollux, Valencia, Ponty, and Amaris doing their part, though I think it was Pollux who did the most damage," he rubs his brow with his fingers, assuaging a headache starting to bloom in the center of his forehead. "Many of the districts didn't see the video that Bonnie made that night calling us all to the mansion, so many people took Pollux's word as the word."

Rennie frowns to himself, signing again. "_Amaris?"_

"A surprise for sure, but a welcomed one," Criston's throat is scratchy, he needing a drink. Telling Lance Viel that he believed both of his tributes to be both lost causes to the rebellion, but here they were, helping bring hostilities to an end. "We needed someone with a little bit of power to help us on both sides. Amaris O'Hara is the only surviving Peacekeeper I could find who wasn't trying to shoot me, and we found her, with Ponty and Vivian keeping a legion back... that girl did it somehow, Rennie," he picks at a scab on his knuckle. Rennie's hands have placed themselves on the sides of his makeshift bed, pushing the thin sheet that had covered his body over to the side. "After Pollux told the nation what had transpired, she said that all the Peacekeepers needed to set their weapons down. She didn't sound bad about it, she simply said that it was the right thing to do."

"_Where is she now?"_

"There were some debates about that, too," Criston says, going from picking at the scab to running his pointer fingers over his thumbs. It is a debate that has Criston divided, with Ponty's testament to the gathered victors and Pollux of what apparently Amaris has done while being in service to Bonnie and Lazarus, and there are moments where the girl fills in the missing puzzle pieces, causing Vivian, Ciphra, and Ponty to stare the girl down into silence, but Pollux decides that for the best of everyone involved with all the tragedy that has befallen them to not touch the subject until Rennie's awoken. "Right now all four tributes are in the mansion, staying in quarters not destroyed. We've all taken up space in the mansion, actually, and there are quarters for you as well," he picks something off the wall, it being a cane, handing it to the avox who grabs it gingerly, almost as if it'll explode as well when given to him. "We don't have a lot of time, as we both have places we need to be at, but this is in case you can't get around as easily."

"_Thank you," _Rennie smiles briefly, testing out the cane, it being painted entirely in black with a glinting silver handle at the top of it, it making a clunking noise on the tile. Criston turns his back to the man, going back to the work table, holding the device he had been making the final few touches on into his palm, pausing in the doorway of the hospital room, waiting. He smiles to himself for a moment, as he knows sooner than later Rennie will find out, for he's already brushed up against it once while talking to him. He takes another step out of the door when Rennie's hand falls on his shoulder, it being a gentle touch, a velvety kind of motion, the victor turning back around with a raised eyebrow, trying to keep the smirk threatening to break free lowered at a minimum. "_What's this?" _Rennie signs back to him, his fingers pressed up against a small black device pressed into his throat, the man looking at himself in the mirror, lips parted. The square looks like a Velcro patch to attach pockets to one another, Criston simply waiting till the man would acknowledge its existence.

It is going to sound strange, for Criston knows it will even as he thinks it to himself in private, that it is good the man had been asleep or otherwise the surgery would most likely not have happened. "While you were unconscious, I showed Pollux something I had been working on," Criston reaches into his pocket, handing Rennie the device he pulls out of it, a sleek black remote the same color as the patch, a single button the color of snow in the center, Rennie rubbing his thumb over it, back and forth. "Pollux didn't want to put you into surgery, but I was unable to grab the device from my quarters before all of this started, and I wanted to keep it a secret..." Criston pats his pants with his palms, they starting to sweat as Rennie looks over the remote. "It is something your sister had me create, shortly after she freed you." Rennie looks up at the mention of Lewlyn, a mistiness in his eyes. "I didn't really know who you were at the time she asked me, since you were just an avox then, but if the Head Gamemaker comes to me with a project, you do what she says."

"_What is it?"_

"It's a speaker," Criston smiles lightly, putting one hand into his pocket. "The surgery was attaching the patch to your throat, which acts as a sensor... think of it like a bandage that is always there," he licks his lips in anticipation. "With the remote, it listens to your brain waves, and if you press the button on the remote, it'll vocalize your thoughts."

Rennie's eyes widen instantaneously, he almost dropping the remote. That wouldn't be good for the market or all of his scientific progress, Criston supposes. "_What?"_

"You can speak, Rennie," Criston smiles larger this time, to the point where his cheeks are starting to hurt, for the man is practically vibrating like a newborn child with excitement, tears welling up in his eyes. "I tried to program your voice as perfectly as I could from the few clips I found of you speaking after old violin concerts and all, but I think I eventually had to make a voice that wasn't your own," he rubs the back of his head, his smile turning sheepish. "I'm sorry on that front, cause I know how foreign it'll be to hear a different voice saying what you're thinking, but, well..." he sighs exasperatedly. "It's a prototype, and I can always make adjustments and help, but I have tested it on myself before, and it does work," a single tear slides down the victor's cheek, which surprises him, for he's never considered himself overtly emotional to then start crying about something. "Lewlyn wanted to give you more happiness than she thought she could, and never told you about it as-"

He doesn't get to finish the statement as Rennie crosses the remainder of the room to throw his arms around him in a hug. Criston chokes on a bubble of surprise, hands posed just above Rennie's shoulders, before laying them into the hug, Rennie squeezing him tight. When the two men retract, there are tears in the Avox's eyes, his face flushed, several droplets sliding down his cheeks in crystal rivers. He presses the button on the remote with his thumb, and then, shortly after that, after about a two or so second delay, "Thank you," aloud, coming from the device attached at his throat. The voice that speaks is male, a suave tone to it, a posh kind after Criston listens to a few picks of Capitolites speaking, there being a similar rhythm to the words like when Calhoun Rodney would speak.

Rennie looks at the device in his hands, at the magic of what science just accomplished, pride flowing in Criston's veins. He just helped an Avox speak. It took him about a year to design the device, and had Lewlyn's constant badgering also breathing down his neck alongside it, but if he can do it for one, who is to say he couldn't do it for all of them, especially if he had a bit of help? He knew from what Ciphra mentioned about her family and the robot he had helped design, the Longsdale's would be more than capable... a light bulb going off in his head.

He's made history here, he and Rennie both shattering open the gates of progress, rushing into the breach with their arms holding up signs of their prowess, Rennie putting the remote in his pocket.

"You're welcome, Rennie," Criston's voice cracks, patting him on the shoulder. "I think it is time you deserve some happiness in this world, don't you?" Rennie nods his head silently in agreement, tears still flowing free, he wiping at his eyes with his free hand, smiling. Criston looks down at his shoes, scuffing them on the tile as they make a squeaking noise. "In an hour Pollux needs you to meet him in the conference room on the third floor, okay?"

"I'll be there," comes the voice again, Rennie repeating his reaction one more time with amazement in his eyes. It is something that the man might never grow accustomed to, but frankly, Criston knows that there is a freedom involved in getting your voice back, something he knows nothing about and something he hopes to never be an expert on in the subject.

"Good," he smiles back in earnest. "Good. I'll see you then, Mr. Davis," Criston nods his head in a goodbye, before turning to leave out of the room.

It is hard for him to resist to do a fist pump to himself in celebration.

The new era of Panem might start to look bright for all the things considered.

* * *

**_Rennie Davis: Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion P.O.V_**

* * *

His entire body is in a buzz, that is the only way he knows how to describe it. The remote in his pocket sits there like a pot of gold found at the end of the rainbow, Rennie smiling to himself as he pats it with his free hand, the other holding onto the other end of the cane Criston provided for him. It is nearing noon, two days since he had pushed Bonnie off of the balcony into the fires of the rebellion below, the thought causing him to pause briefly, just for a second with a slight frown. If this had been his future, to have this device to help him speak, he is certain that there is no way she'd have been happy about it, and would've forbidden him from using it, since it is an idea that would've come from his sister and not her, as that is what would make Bonnie jealous. Sunlight streams through some of the windows, they open wide to allow more happiness to filter into the mansion, the building having felt soaked in melancholy and guarded defenses lately, Rennie taking a deep breath as he climbed the second flight of stairs, the same flight of stairs that Amaris O'Hara sends him up with her commandeering voice.

She's alive, which he supposes is a good thing, despite the fact that she had been fighting for the enemy right up until the end, but he knows what it is like to support the wrong person willingly, a bitter backsplash hitting his throat that he swallows down with a grimace. He makes his way to the third floor, climbing up the last set of stairs, these stairs wider than the ones on the first two floors and sculpted entirely out of marble. Initially, as he's read it somewhere in a dusty book in the library that no one might not even use, the presidential mansion had originally had only been two floors, but again, during the reigns of Emrick Israel and Cain Passionia, the two men decided to expand upon the grounds and add a third floor, though Rennie is unsure of its purpose, for he's never been up to the third level before. The floor is changed from tile to carpet when he makes his way up to it, a lit chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the center. Looking to his left, as he reaches the top, his grip on the cane firm as can be, Rennie sees that there's a bit of the mansion that is destroyed, the roof slightly caved in, several Peacekeepers and a servant – not one dressed in avox garb, he has to make the distinction clear, as he hasn't seen a single avox on his entire walk up from the basement medicinal wing – pushing away some rocks.

The conference room that Criston tells him to head to in an hour after their conversation sits in front of him through a pair of double doors, wide oak doors that stretch from the ceiling to the floor, gilded doorknobs the color of freshly reaped corn sparkling in the sunlight from the massive windows that adorn the far wall as he makes his way up the winding staircase. However, that does not draw Rennie towards the doors, he looking to his right, lips pursed as he takes sight of what covers the right side of the wall, they luckily not covered in any sort of dust from bombardments in the sky.

He takes a step towards the right side of the double doors, eyes wide as he takes in the sight of a picture of his sister sitting in a silver frame, the picture about half the size of the door, and if he looks behind him at the wall connected to the staircase he came up from, there are more pictures hanging there, a picture just about the size of the wall there, Rennie looking away as quick as he can to stare back at the painting of Lewlyn. She's sitting at a table, hands poised together with fingers interlocked between one another, her hands resting on the table, her auburn hair tied into a bun with frizzy locks dancing on both sides, she dressed in her Gamemaker uniform, a cloak of white and gray with a silver brooch of Panem's long just above her breast. She's smiling, legitimately smiling, Rennie tilting his head to the side. He has no idea when the painting would've been created, but given that she's in her Gamemaker outfit, it must've been during her tenure.

Rennie takes a step forward up to the painting, resting one hand on the outer edge of the frame, closing his eyes, and resting his head against it. "Look what happened to us," he voices aloud with the remote, his body shuddering at the noise, for there doesn't seem to be a very good volume control to it, and if there is one, Criston did not mention it down below. "To think where we started, and where we are now…" he looks up at the painting, his heart beating in his chest. No matter what the world or others want to think of her, she's his sister, and she's stolen from her before the two could ever truly be happy. She might've done horrible things in the beginning, but the last leg of her life had been spent trying to fix all of those wrongs everyone else deemed to be irrevocable… Rennie's heart will forever be grateful.

"I miss you…" he whispers, and if Rennie were to look at the painting just so it'd almost come to him as if she were life like in front of him. "I think you'd be- you'd be proud of what I've done, and I did it all for you, Lewlyn," another tear slides down his face, cooling his eyelashes when he blinks, a slight gasp emitting from his throat. "I love you, Lewlyn."

He takes a step back from the painting, turning when he notices someone heading his way, a faint blush settling on his cheeks. It may be alright for him to feel the way he does about his sister, despite what he's gone through with her in times past, but for someone else to hear declarations of romance to an inanimate object… Rennie tugs at his collar, smiling sheepishly at the servant who had been helping the Peacekeepers clear away some of the rubble. It is not quite noon when he checks one of the clocks on the side before climbing the stairs, about ten minutes till, so he knows he has some time to kill.

"You've never been up here before have you, Mr. Davis?" the woman asks him, she folding her hands over her skirt, a spotted little thing that barely seems to brush past her knees. He gives a silent nod, putting the remote in his pocket. He lost the tablet that Bonnie had given him up on the balcony when she pushes him during their confrontation, it shattering into several pieces that are probably still up there. He remembers digging his fingers into the concrete, bleeding out from the wound in his shoulder, unable to find the ability in vaulting himself over to join Bonnie in the afterlife. An afterlife that he sent her to, a person he used to believe he'd stay with forever and ever until the seas would run dry.

"_No, I have not,_" he signs at her, hoping, praying that the woman would happen to know what he's saying, as to otherwise it means communicating with the patch on his neck, at which he does see the woman narrow her gaze on it before taking another step towards him.

"I am the one in charge of making sure all the paintings and pictures are taken care of," she extends his hand for her to shake, he doing so in earnest. "Luckily, this side of the building is alright after what has happened…" the woman drops her voice for a moment, taking a step around him to pat the wall, Rennie nodding his head in agreement. It is one way to address it, for certain, to encompass a rebellion and thousands of lives lost as simply just a 'what has happened.' "It is a history wing, built by President Emrick Israel in one of the last years of his reign before Cain Passionia took the presidency," the servant faces Lewlyn's picture head on. "Every time there is a new president or Head Gamemaker elected, selected, or what have you, there is a portrait made for them and hung on this wall." There is pride in her voice as she gestures up at the picture, Rennie taking another step back to bask in the glory of his sister's depiction, although he believes the nose is done incorrectly. "Head Gamemakers are done on four by five-foot frames, and presidents are six by six," the woman wrings her hands together, Rennie taking notice of how well manicured her nails are. "Any time there is a new portrait that needs to replace the previous one, in the designing of the initial a smaller size is also made alongside it to be hung up in lined succession when it is eventually taken down."

"_Where do they go?" _Rennie asks the woman, frowning. There may never be another Head Gamemaker in Panem's history, but he does not like the concept of his sister's picture just getting taken off the wall and thrown away. Besides his memory of her, since the statue in Gamemakers Square of Constantine having been desecrated, this painting may be all there is of Lewlyn in a positive light, for he'll never be able to look at her gravestone and hold the tears back.

"There's a basement of the larger pictures, but eventually the materials might need to be recycled for new use," the woman shrugs. "It all depends on the president in charge, truthfully," she looks up at Lewlyn's painting, but Rennie is unable to tell if there are tears in the woman's eyes or just sunlight falling on her powdered face, for she is done up in all sorts of makeup, but he does not have the heart to press his remote and tell her it looks awful; he's done enough breaking of hearts lately. "Your sister's picture will need to be taken down eventually, Mr. Davis, as sad as it is to say. There was work being made on Ms. Fallorne's," Rennie growls lowly in his throat at the woman's name. She is someone he is glad to say is dead. Her husband, while not the most perfect man, did not deserve the ending that she locks him into, the stories saying his throat dissolves in on itself like crumbling up a napkin. "But who knows, maybe it gets to stay up here forever," she turns around to face the other wall, dread sinking into Rennie's ankles. "Madam Rodney's painting was finished two days before the reapings for the 101st Games, so she's had hers replace Calhoun's."

Rennie swallows his fear, turning around to see Bonnie's portrait. It is larger, the frame, as the woman had said it would be, the six by six design, and it is in a golden one rather than a silver one. A plaque sits beneath the name, Rennie taking a step forward to read it. _Bonnie Elizabeth Rodney, President of Panem, term of one month, two weeks, six days. _Rennie takes a step back, the water in his mouth drying up. This would've just been updated, as… he looks up at the painting, slowly, his body tensing up like a spring waiting to release. Her stare seems to look down at him, although the picture has Bonnie keeping her stare straight ahead, blonde hair slung over one shoulder, she dressed in the same blue pinstripe suit she had been wearing when she makes her announcement for the members of the Phoenix to come to the mansion initially.

He takes a step back, pressing his hands up against the sides of his throat, trying to keep his breakfast from reappearing onto the tile. She looks ethereal in the photo, the beauty he used to respect in her, her diamond stare solid like she is crucifying the person who is painting her picture in the background where no one is able to what it looked like from her end. This is the woman he has killed, the woman he has overthrown, the system that had pushed him down into the dirt and wondered why he had been crying out against injustices in the world. The little girl, the daughter – "_Your daughter now, Rennie,_" a voice that is not the one he hears in his head normally spits at him, causing Rennie to shiver despite the sunlight streaming through the window – looks just like her, even if she is only a few months old at this point, but is in the curve of the nose, the angling of the forehead, and even the way the little girl smiles, from the few times Bonnie has ever grinned.

Sitting in a smaller frame, a three by three he judges by looking at it, next to it, is a president that Rennie does not recognize, he turning to face the servant who simply lifts her head up.

"From records that have been scoured over and over again, that is said to be the first person who led Panem as we know it is today. Many presidents before Mr. Emrick Israel and Mr. Cain Passionia, who are more down in the middle of the row," the woman points. "I don't recall the man's name though, and his plaque has been taken," she says as she leans in to get a better look.

Rennie matches her level for level, looking at the wall, and then turning back around to see the line of Head Gamemakers, mentally adding Constantine's picture to it. The Head Gamemaker before Lewlyn, who would've been Plutarch Heavensbee if he does the math in his head correctly, is the last picture in that line, but he is unable to see clearly where Calhoun's picture has gone. "_There are a lot more Head Gamemakers than Presidents," _he takes note, raising an eyebrow.

"Terrible Gamemakers and very trigger-happy presidents," the woman supposes, though her tone remains neutral.

That causes him to frown. Did his sister have the longest time being a Head Gamemaker? Some of the plaques only say a few weeks, the longest as he looks down the collection being no more than five or six years if that… what did his sister have, if she had been such a devil, that the others did not to keep her alive? It is a question he figures would be too disrespectful to ask the woman, who has joined him again as he goes back to Bonnie's picture.

She's gone, and he's still here, something that radiates through him like a bullet to the spine.

"You know, Mr. Davis, now that you've seen all of this, do you think you'll ever see your face up there?" she asks with a smile, the servant looking at him while Rennie's eyes appraise over the way the painter had done Bonnie's eyes. "I mean, I imagine you and your sister didn't expect to become prized members of a Panemian president's administration at one point, but here we are twenty years later and-"

"_No,_" Rennie signs, though he debates for a moment on using the remote, which he can feel in his pocket, his hand ghosting over it slightly, plastic colliding with the point of his thumb. "_Not really. Maybe, once upon a time, but now?" _He frowns, shaking his head. Power drives his sister to the brink of insanity, to the point where she's paranoid and cuts his tongue out over something he's never said or done. Power destroys the Rodney family from the inside out… the sample of power he's had in leading a rebellion has been enough, he supposes.

The way the woman stares at him will never leave him, as if she knows something he doesn't before nodding her head, turning back, and heading towards the Peacekeepers working on moving the rubble. Rennie looks at the clock on the wall, it being just a minute or so till noon.

He sighs to himself, straightening out the edges of his shirt, palming the remote in his hand, before turning his back to Bonnie's picture, giving one last look at his sister's. There is a new future, potentially, through those double doors, the cane in his grip, but he considers leaving it outside the room as he makes his way to the double doors.

Rennie can pick up slight chatter on the other side of the door, fingers eclipsing the knob, before he twists it and pushes in on the door.

Nine other people are in the room before him, Rennie jumping with a slight start as he enters the room, the conference room that Calhoun would've held plenty of talks about the Games if they were not in his office or on the balcony. The door shuts behind Rennie with a groan, trapping him here and the free world left outside there, his eyes searching over. Pollux is in the corner speaking with Valencia, both of them turning towards the entrance as the door closes. Criston is next to Ciphra, already sitting down, pairs of dark hair matching their outfits, but Ciphra scoots her chair back as Rennie enters, her hands resting on the table.

It is a circular table, dark brown in color, that takes up most of the allocated space in the room, Rennie inching towards it and towards the open chair in front of him, these black spokes with a flattened spot to sit on. Ponty and Amaris are both standing as far away from one another as they can, Amaris next to Lance, who is next to the empty chair, Hale on Rennie's left with Vivian, who has her red bow back in her hair next to her, it looking like Pollux would be taking the head of the table, a bit of pride surging into Rennie's veins. He had always wanted to see what Pollux would do in charge of something other than just speaking to people on stage with a microphone in his hand. Lewlyn could've done that, any of the tributes with a personality would have been able to do that.

The room is carpeted as Rennie takes another step towards it, leaning forward to place his cane on the side of the table. Whatever remnants of conversation that had taken place are silenced immediately when Rennie rights himself, simply looking at everyone. Weathered lines are sunken into most of their faces, Hale, Pollux, Valencia, and Amaris looking the most tired out of all of them, the Interviewer making his way to the front of the table, pulling back on the chair, which scoots on the floor. Opposite him, pressed against the wall, is a cart with a decanter of water and several glasses sitting on it, but no one seems to have gotten a glass.

He can feel the power in the room, but as he looks around it, he sees that Kevia Janelle and Hector Merviere are not among them, sadness flooding into his stomach. Criston hadn't mentioned that to him in their conversation, that they were gone… he can only imagine that if they were alive they'd be in the room, since it seems to him- he bites down on his tongue. It is the past, currently, and all that matters is being in this room with these people who have been waiting for him, though on what he is not certain about.

"_What is all of this for?" _he signs, raising an eyebrow.

"It's what briefly discussed before Interview Night," Pollux smiles wryly, dressed in a simple chromatic white and black ensemble, Valencia's eyes flashing at the statement. Secrets, secrets, secrets… the entire rebellion is built on secrets, it infused into Rennie's DNA, something he is unable to help or stop no matter how hard he tries.

"_And we're all that's left?" _

"All that I can trust, at least," Pollux runs one hand alongside the top of the chair while those who had been standing, which is Valencia and Ponty, take their seats, Ciphra sitting back down as Rennie takes his. "When Constantine destroyed the Tribute Center, many escorts and mentors died in the destruction. Some mentors are stuck in the districts cleaning up whatever messes we've made, and everyone else is-"

"Bonnie's suckers," Valencia fills in for him, her voice as cold as ice, strong as steel.

Rennie winces at the tone, but he remembers that Criston said whatever Valencia went through for her encounter with the devil – he means Constantine, but the devil is apt – has her dancing on the edge of precarious and bitter. "_Just waiting for me?"_

"Just waiting for you," Pollux smiles, with a nod.

The Avox's gaze passes over the table, it starting with him, Hale, Vivian, Pollux, Valencia, Ponty, Criston, Ciphra, Amaris, Lance, and back to him, he wiping his palms on his pants. Ponty furrows his brow together, scoffing at Pollux's words, getting everyone's attention to him. "If you said it is people you can trust, Mr. Aetos, then why the _fuck _is she here?" he questions aloud, venom in his tone as he points over at Amaris, a barbed finger twisted and curled up into a spike to dive into her chest.

Amaris sighs, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, rubbing her forehead with a hand. Rennie imagines that the last two days have been like this if this is exactly what has been transpiring without him in the first place. "Ponty, not now-" she starts, but her district partner doesn't let her get the chance.

"You do one good thing and now I'm supposed to kiss your ass?"

"Ponty, no one is saying that-" Ciphra starts, rather tiredly, she not even concentrating, her gaze more sporadic and onto the table, fingernails scratching away at something.

Pollux clears his throat, though Rennie can see by the way his fingers curl that he'd rather be holding onto an object where he could smash it into the table, like a gavel. Maybe it is a miracle that Rennie has gotten all of these personalities to work together for a common good. "Mr. Carr, right now Amaris is under Rennie and the rebellion's protection, for without her, we might not even be sitting here having this conversation," Rennie has heard Pollux get serious before, even to the point of shouting or screaming, but there is something different from the way the interviewer looks at the tribute, gaze frigid, Ponty locking his jaw.

"But-"

"Ponty, just drop it," Vivian mutters from her seat, she sinking a bit down into it, just to the point where her head peeks over the top of it, but she does not make an effort to sit any higher in the chair. "We've got more important things to discuss, and-"

They are not even babbling with one another, but in Rennie's head it is like listening to a squabble of chickens clucking and pecking at one another, he taking a deep breath like Amaris, who has recovered and set her arms to the sides of the chair, gripping, and hugging the arm rests. He had been eavesdropping on one of Bonnie and Lewlyn's arguments about the arena for the 101st Games shortly after Valencia's victory tour begins with her stopping in District 4 for her speech, and while Rennie knows now that all along the woman had been planning on killing her sister, perhaps even from day or week one when the two first met all those years ago in a ballroom while he is playing the violin in the corner, the amount of bickering the two grown women would do over something as seemingly inconsequential as the design of light fixtures so the tributes could see would be enough to make him massage his temples.

If he is incapable of taking it from two grown women who would've known better had they been raised by better mothers, he'll never last through an hour of two teenagers going to town at one another like two vultures fighting over a corpse.

Hale pinches the bridge of her nose, slamming her palm on the table, which brings the room to a silent standstill, Amaris about to hotly object to some insult about her ass that comes from Ponty's accusation that he makes on the joke Pollux makes during his interview on blowing – Rennie has to suppress the slight giggle in his throat – all sound stopping when everyone looks at the victoress from District 2. "You are not tributes right now in this room, but people actively helping for Panem's survival and your own survival, regardless of what you two have done," she takes a look around the room, surveying a sweep with her arm. "We have all been through hell, and right now we could all do without another dosage of bickering. If you want to act like children instead of young adults, you're more than welcome to tour the mansion or go help some Peacekeepers with their cleanup projects."

That seems to do the trick, Rennie smiling slightly and squeezing the woman's hand with an appreciative amount of pressure. Pollux purses his lips, looking over at Ponty who seems to fall back into his chair, almost in a sulking manner, but thankfully he does not cross his arms over his chest. Amaris does the opposite, sitting up even straighter with her back pressed firmly into the chair. Rennie scoots his chair back to go over to the decanter, going to fill up a glass of water, though no one else asks for him to make them one, so he does not.

On his way back to his seat, Pollux fills the space left vacant by Hale's words. "The victors, Rennie, and I have decided that the situations dealing with Amaris will be dealt with after the rest of the nation's troubles are dealt with first, so for now, put away the fight or leave like Hale instructed."

"Nation's troubles?" Ciphra furrows her brow together, Rennie's heartbeat beginning to pick up in his chest. He knows what is about to happen, even if he still doesn't want it to happen.

Pollux scoots his chair in even further to be closer to the table. Although it is something he and the other victors have been up for hours in the morning talking about, it is only briefly entertained and hinted at, but in Rennie's now realized naivete, the amount of destruction they've brought to the city and to the districts and to Panem as a whole in just four days is staggering, complete turmoil when someone rips the lawn out from under their feet, causing them to fall flat on their face. He doesn't have an answer, but the _Panemian Council _might be able to, a title he dubs before he detonates the bombs in Bonnie's living room… what Panem's future will look like when the Phoenix has melted away into ash.

The interviewer laces his fingers together, much very like the portrait of Lewlyn out in the hallway, Rennie's scalp starting to itch, he focusing on one water droplet slide down his glass of water. "As easy as it is so say, the rebellion and what we wanted to do has been accomplished. We overthrew Bonnie," there's a general rise of congratulations and cheer added to the mix, Rennie trying to keep his grin down. "However, that does not mean our job is far from over, since as Criston poetically put it, there needs to be an 'after' for this nation, for us," he looks directly at Rennie, a pang of emotion running through him. "Bonnie Rodney is dead. Lazarus Pietro is dead. Constantine Fallorne is dead. The president, Head Peacekeeper, and the Head Gamemaker, among others, make up the Panemian Council, or otherwise known as to the public, the Administration, and with Bonnie in power, they'd be the Rodney Administration…" he clears his throat, that causing Rennie to go for a sip of his water glass. "Rennie never knew what to do in case this didn't end up with all of us dying. How do we go from shattering a mirror to piecing it back together again?" Pollux asks, and although the question is rhetorical, Rennie can see the way Valencia and Hale furrow their brows together at it, trying to find the answer. "That is going to be up to us, today, in this room, for however long it takes. We need to decide on what must be done, and we need to have an answer eventually, or otherwise all we've done for has fallen apart."

"The Hunger Games must end," is the first thing that comes out Vivian Whiplash's mouth, the girl from District 10 sitting straight up in her chair at that. "I didn't get reaped for the Games, survive a war, and decide on this nation's future for the Games to continue," she tugs at the ribbon in her hair. "I'd kill whoever decides to keep them, no matter who," and, even if she doesn't realize she does it, her gaze falls on the Avox, Rennie's skin bristling with electricity at her look.

"How do we even have the power to make a decision such as this?" Ciphra asks, as a follow-up, her eyes bright with curiosity, brow furrowed like a few of the victors sitting at the table. Rennie often asks him that question as well, when he had been lying down in the Underground Defense while all of his other compatriots were enjoying their 'freedom' around the Capitol, going out to frolic in the sun, to eat things that didn't come out of a can, where they can keep their hair color the same…

He asks himself all the time, and finds himself asking it right now even in the midst of all he's done, what power does he somehow have now to be able to do what he's done? Who gave him the right to play Creator in people's lives? To kill those he has killed, to pave the streets in front of him with blood… a pressure on his shoulders he is sure he is not recovering from anymore.

"Enough power in us to think we could've started a rebellion and won," Ponty snorts in his seat, and although it is not disrespectful, Valencia elbows him in the side with a glare.

Pollux swishes his tongue from one side of his mouth to the other, blinking hard several times. "The others who I'd have considered in helping make these decisions are people I am fairly certain are Bonnie's diehard helpers who'd rather this nation burn to the ground before Rennie or I or Valencia live and breathe another day. Thanks to her help, mine, plus Vivian and Amaris's, they're all prisoners in the cells below and it'll be up to the people should it ever become a burden they can handle, on what to happen to them," he says, Rennie raising an eyebrow. What exactly happened while he had been knocked out?

His dreams were not dreams or nightmares, Rennie's, while in that unconscious state, but a shapeless blob of nothing keeping him afloat, like he's swimming in gelatin, an insect trapped in amber as he drowns in a sea of nothingness, liquid lava filling his throat and chest, stopping him from rising to the surface to catch a breath, all the while Bonnie's body breaks open and cracks like an egg on the ground below him, sizzling in the heat, her scream trapped in his ear drums.

"You all saw firsthand how hard it was trying to get the Peacekeepers in the districts to stand down and let the good fight be lost after we won here," Pollux motions for a glass of water, Criston getting up and making it for him, he taking a long swig after receiving it, Rennie's eyes focusing on the man's Adam's apple as he takes several swallows… his throat power had been quite the instrument, in more ways than one. A faint blush rises to his cheeks, but he suffocates the thought; it is something he'll pursue later if it comes down to it. "They still need to heal, even if the damage done there is not nearly as bad as all of this here has become in such a short period of time…" he thumps his fingers against the desk. "We must decide what Panem's future will be. Who leads, how we lead it, and what we need to do going forward from here."

Rennie is not quite sure what he expects to have happen after Pollux finishes his miniature speech, taking another sip of water for emphasis. Perhaps there could've been one of them to stand up on the table and declare their brilliant idea like a direct lightning bolt to the forehead, with thundering applause to accompany their return back to the mortal land of these black wicker chairs, but instead, they are all met with, once again, silence.

He almost laughs.

Lance scoffs at first, leaning forward, resting an elbow on the table. "Pollux, I don't think it is supposed to be that easy-"

The interviewer bristles some in his chair at the statement. "I never said it was going to be _easy, _but-"

"Well, if we are to think about governances and how the nation should be run, is it too outlandish to suggest that the districts all rule themselves?" Ciphra raises an eyebrow, after having whispered something in Criston's ear. Rennie wants to sit up and speak, but he doesn't know if his voice is instrumental enough in a conversation like this… he led everyone to watering hole to take a drink, but he is not the Alpha Male horse who'll lean down first and sip from the pool with the crocodile eying him all the while.

"That wouldn't work," Hale disagrees, with a frown, a perceptible shake of her head. "The Treaties of Treason declared that the districts would never be self-governing. It is always the mayor and the Head Peacekeeper doing all that work, and if we were to start now…" the victor from District 2 takes a deep breath, "We may never even get to finish, getting however many people to start their own governments…" Ciphra frowns likewise with the shooting down of her idea, but Rennie knows it.

Valencia pinches her brow, Rennie noticing that her dark hair nearly disappears into the chair. "Forgive me for saying her name, but from the little of what Bonnie had told me about governing is that the way Panem has been designed, you have to think about it as a beating heart," the stand-offish presence that had seemed to emanate from the victor from when Rennie enters the room disappears as she speaks, the power and attention of the room flocking to her as Ciphra stops her rebuttal. "The districts are specialized in a trade or a focus, and the Capitol provides the 'entertainment,'" Valencia makes air quotes around the word, she, and the other victors as well as the tributes squirming their noses in disgust at the idea. The Hunger Games as entertainment must be the largest slap in the face that Rennie can think of. "You cut off one valve of the beating heart, then the entire system experiences organ failure."

"Who'd she get that notion from?" Amaris asks.

Without missing a beat, Valencia looks at the Peacekeeper straight in the eyes, but Amaris, to her credit doesn't flinch. "Apparently that is what President Coriolanus Snow told Katniss Everdeen once," the victor shrugs at the statement, though Rennie's stomach acid churns like a stormy sea. "I understood it though. The districts can't survive autonomously, and neither can the Capitol. The two either coexist together, or Panem doesn't exist, period."

Back to square one, then, Rennie resigns to himself with a sigh, trying to not groan.

"Separate district governments is not a possibility, then," Pollux brushes some hair out of his brow. "Which means that we need a ruler then, correct? Someone to rule the country from the Capitol, as president of Panem."

"How do we have the power to decide _that?" _Criston sits up in his seat, voice incredulous. He leans forward onto the desk, rubbing his forehead.

Lance shrugs his shoulders. "How does anyone get anything done if all they do is question themselves?"

Amaris cuts over whoever is going to speak next. "If what Mr. Aetos says is true, then that means we need to select someone to rule, and there's only one person in here that isn't a lackey of Ms. Rodney to do it," Rennie, for a moment, believes she's speaking about him, as he lifts his head, but she's staring ahead directly at Valencia. "Valencia," the victor in question jumps in place at her name, as if someone had electrocuted her sitting right there, her body straightening up instantly, eyes widening, fingers clenching around the armrests. "Ms. Rodney said your name every five minutes it felt like. You were staying in the Capitol did learn about how to rule, didn't you?"

Valencia shakes her head back and forth in a rapid-fire movement, to the point where Rennie is afraid that she's going to somehow break her neck and send her own head flying into the decanter of water. "No," her voice is barely that of a whisper, but Rennie hears it, the crippling fear in it.

He's heard that fear before, fear that rises from his own throat as Lewlyn bursts into his room in the middle of the night with Lazarus Pietro – he should've known from the _first, _the fucker – and an accompanying squadron of Peacekeepers that drag him out of his bed in a night terror, ripping his violin from his hands before removing his tongue from his mouth in a splash of scarlet… that is the fear he hears in Valencia's voice, her gaze that of a thousand lives gone by, a song sung by ghosts.

"Valencia-" Hale starts, a motherly tone hidden in her tone, perhaps trying to push pathos onto her fellow victor's shoulders.

"NO!" Valencia shouts, but for all her credit, she simply leans forward out of her chair some instead of getting to her feet like Rennie expects. "No, I won't do it," her entire body is trembling like a leaf, Ponty reaching over and touching her wrist with his hand, a gentle amount of pressure applied that has her falling back into her sea a bit more lax than before they all began speaking. "Bonnie and I had a couple lessons, yes," she continues, after her initial outburst wears off, "But nothing to the point of ruling a nation. She never even told me why she selected me…" the victor looks down into her lap. "I think she just wanted to keep me around cause she liked me, in all honesty."

Rennie cannot reach across the table to touch her hand, and he doesn't, but he knows he can do something else instead that'd bring the house down around him, no need for one of Criston's explosive devices to do the trick this time.

He presses his thumb against the remote in his left pocket, thoughts running rampant in his head.

"I understand, Valencia," a voice that is not his own, but Rennie is starting to believe it is his own at this point, comes out of the patch, the speaker, on his throat. For a moment, there is a heavy pause on the air, a lamenting pause on the air, but then the sound of nine bodies all turning to face him in unison – eight, truthfully, by the way Criston is smirking to himself in his seat, completely beside himself – some with shocked facial expressions, open mouths and dropped jaws, but most of all, the brightness in their eyes.

"Did- did you just _speak_?" Vivian is the first, as per usual, to bridge into unknown territory.

"I know what he used to sound like," Pollux frowns, his voice heavy and sad as he speaks from his corner of the table. "That isn't Rennie's voice, but someone else's coming from Rennie," he turns to face the victor from District 6, the only one not moving. "You did that, didn't you? That's the surgery you wanted to have Rennie go under so you could get that device onto him, isn't it?"

Criston shrugs, smiling. "Lewlyn's last gift to him, but I am working out most of its kinks," his eyes sparkle like freshly washed spinach, glistening in green. Rennie's skin begins to itch with this many eyes on him, a look of amazement dancing on all of their eyes. "I was wondering when you were going to use it."

"You have a voice…" Hale whispers, she pressing a hand to the Avox's face. "I mean, not _your _voice, but one and-"

"It's mine, Hale," Rennie continues, he wanting to cheer, but the look on everyone else's faces is enough in terms of the amount of joy he could have in his life, the amount that'd forever fill him full with happiness.

A pause settles over the group, Ponty and Ciphra congratulating Criston with pats on the back, before Valencia and Pollux look at one another, a conversation passing silently between them by just their eyes. Rennie pulls the remote out of his pocket, setting it on the table as he takes a sip of water just in case he does push the button again that he doesn't startle someone when words start flowing out of a mouth with lips that do not move. He wonders how disconcerting it must look like to Lance and Hale when it happens, for there to be no movement.

The glass is cool in his hands as he lifts it to his lips, Pollux and Valencia returning to their normally seated positions.

"I don't think I'd be able to do it, but I think Rennie _could,_" the victor says, with a smile, nodding her head in his direction. His hand pauses halfway to his mouth, the rim of the glass just barely touching his lip as he freezes in place.

His free hand does have room to move about, so he signs it instead. "_What?" _Why is everyone all of a sudden looking at him in the first place? He's made his moment of dropping the microphone on the table by revealing Criston's device, where he needs to give the victor another hug for his accomplishment, and a visit to Lewlyn's grave to thank her, but he's done… just observing and-

Pollux cannot hide his grin even if he tried; Rennie picks the worst person in the entire Rodney administration to help do his dirty work if he cannot even suppress moments of doubt and secrecy. "You, Rennie, as president."

Rennie drops his water glass, but luckily Lance is there to catch it before it shatters onto the table and floods all over his pants. "_Wh- what?" _His entire system is too shocked to even reach for the remote to press the button, eyes widening in disbelief.

"Seriously, Rennie," Pollux nods his head. "We all trusted you to lead us in a rebellion against her, and although you didn't know what you were doing the entire time, you knew Bonnie needed to be stopped, and you knew that the Games to needed to be eradicated from Panem…" he gestures around the table, Rennie following the movement to see that everyone's faces were changing to that of appeasement and general agreement, a seed of panic flaring up in the pit of Rennie's stomach. "Everyone in the nation saw your video that you filmed, and you were the one who came up with the idea of having me broadcast it and interrupt the normal filming of the reaping propaganda so everyone would see it…" the interviewer shakes his head back and forth, a lump filling in his throat. "You did it because you cared, and because you knew you'd be the only one who _could _do it. The one we chose."

Rennie doesn't know what to say, he doesn't know what to say, or think, or feel, or any of it. All he can remember after hearing the news that his sister and Calhoun were killed, and that Hale and Arizona were indicted for their murders all the while Bonnie ascends to a throne that isn't hers… he can only remember the rage in him, the way he wants to smash the violin his sister gifts him into the floor, or to scream into the blankets that surround his apartment… but instead he doesn't do that.

He opens the virtual chessboard, the game of chess where every single pawn has turned into a queen, Bonnie working with a set of kings, and it is no surprise that he ends up beating her with his head in the game, his eye on the prize. Simply put her in checkmate, checkmate until she suffocates under the pressure.

Lance is the first person to agree to the Phoenix Rebellion, a simple note that comes across his mailbox the moment he goes into hiding after sending the video around the Capitol of Bonnie's illegal dealings. From that point forward, it is a rolling snowball, some things in effect from time's past with Calhoun and Lewlyn's movements in the dark… he can only see knocking over the king and putting her in checkmate, not what lies beyond that on the horizon, hidden in murky depths of fog and mist and rain and blood and tears and-

His head is spinning, Rennie placing a hand on the table, the other going to rub the center of his forehead.

"You guys, I can't-"

"You wouldn't be doing it alone," Pollux interrupts him, lifting his head in the air. "You'd have me, and Valencia, and Criston, and every district and every district citizen behind you as the person who wanted to do things right," the Master of Ceremonies' chair scoots forward as Pollux shifts his body weight into the table. "I believed in you to take us this far, even when you kept us in the dark, because only you had a plan and if we deterred from it, we all could've died. We _all _believe in you to have you lead us further on than this."

"I _can't_-"

"I thought I couldn't win the Games after one point," Valencia cuts him off, her voice strong, reverb full of life, eyes bright with tears, Rennie locking his gaze with hers. "After Marcus shot Maisey and cut Hero's throat open, and when I saw Persephone get burnt alive, I thought I'd die in that arena, until I _didn't, _and I wasn't going to let a hateful woman take my life away either," she set her arms on the table, palms flat, top of her hands facing the ceiling. "I joined your rebellion because I believed in you. We all joined because we believed in you."

He has no idea what to think. His entire body is buzzing once more, but he no longer hears Bonnie's dying scream in his head, but the sound of her baby laughing, or Bonnie's laughter when she is told a joke by Lazarus on one of his off days. Rennie hears his sister singing in the shower, or her humming one of violin melodies years ago before the corrupt power reaches her head. He hears the sound of waves slamming onto a stony shore, or cheers when a victor returns home to their district and a bouquet of flowers rests in their hands.

Rennie can hear his own name being shouted by the soldiers who followed him into battle just a few days ago against the Peacekeepers. The way Pollux shouts the Avox's name as he lunges forward to vault the ticking time bomb onto the far wall of the mansion… his sister saying his name as he kisses her and rests their backs up against a wall, kicking over a plant onto the floor.

He can hear himself saying his own name in his head, so he doesn't forget it one day, so when he's old and gray it'll never leave him, for if it is to leave him, then he is lost.

"Rennie?" Hale asks gently, placing a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up. He doesn't realize it, but he's pressed his head into his arms, resting them on the table. Is- is he crying? Rennie feels a dampness where his face had rested, and sure enough, there are a few tears sliding down his face. What did that woman outside tell him, when looking at all of the pictures of the presidents and Head Gamemakers?

"Rennie?" Pollux prods lightly, light enough where he'd feel it with the urgency of his voice. "Rennie, we do need an answer."

The avox lifts his head, swallowing down his fear. He swallows his fear when he's an avox in his sister's service. He swallows his fear performing in front of packed crowds with his violin nestled underneath his jaw, bow string in his hands. He swallows his fear typing away on the tablet Bonnie gives him to be the downfall of her own making as he presses record on the camera in front of him. He swallows his fear charging into battle.

He no longer needs to bury his fears or hope they wither away like a decaying winter into the onslaught of a ferocious spring.

If he one day finds a way to up the volume on the speech that'll come from the speaker attached to his throat via the remote, he'll use it all the time, as Rennie lifts his head up, smiling.

"I will," he says, decisively, taking a look at the gathered council in the room. They are the Panemian Council, whether they know it or not. And now, _they're his. _"I'll take up the presidency for Panem."

Valencia's smile almost makes him cry even harder, drowned out in Lance's cheering, or Ponty's clapping, while Pollux simply leans back, preened as a peacock by how he then puts his feet up on the table.

Rennie smiles to himself, jostled by everyone's movements towards him, but he can only picture Lewlyn, from wherever she is, looking at him. "_Look where we started," _he thinks to himself, sweetly. "_And look where we are now…" _a bit of nostalgia brings a tear down his cheek, but he smiles larger at the rest of his thought. "_And look at where we still have to go._"

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**So everyone, that was Chapter #36: The Panemian Council, of Bombs and Bullets, the first of three epilogue chapters given the crazy, absolutely wild ride we've been on. So, from a violinist performing for sold out crowds, to his sister's personal avox and essentially a sex slave, to a freed man with some political power, to a traitor on the run, to the leader of a rebellion, to the leader of a _successful _rebellion, to the President of Panem... ladies and gentlemen, if that is not a character arc for Rennie Davis, then I do not know what one is anymore. This has actually always been my end goal, when I introduced Rennie and Lewlyn together back in Chapter 2 of Sheep Led to Slaughter's prologues, I wondered where Lewlyn in her all of insanity would go, and where Rennie, with his moments in the background would fall to... and he's risen instead of fallen.**

**For the bit about him being able to use the device Criston creates, I understand it might be a bit farfetched, but in the world where we have authors reviving tributes for resurrection games and whatnot, honestly down to Criston's genius and Capitol science/medicine I could have Rennie be given the ability to speak, which he'll need as Panem's new president. I am positively exhausted, as 12k of this was written in one sitting today that I am posting, but I wanted to get this chapter out and reach the other two epilogues, which will positively be pulling at my heartstrings. There will be four POVs each for these two chapters, two tributes and two Capitol characters between each chapter for eight remaining... what do you think will be the fate of the eight characters we'll hear from... and who do you think gets the last pov of Slaughterverse? 1/8 chance!**

**Thank you all so much for reading; reviews would be greatly appreciated now that we are here in the final frontier. I shall see you all soon sometime, hopefully on July 8th, which is Wednesday, for the second of the three epilogues, Chapter #37: A Nation on Trial, which I am very excited about, as we'll be seeing how this Panemian council and their decisions are settling in. I hope you all have an amazing day, and thank you again for your support. I love you all so much! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	37. A Nation on Trial (Epilogue II)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #37: A Nation on Trial, the second of three epilogue chapters and man, do I have some good stuff prepared for you today, ladies and gentlemen! I am very excited as we're nearing the end, and potentially the end of Slaughterverse as we know it which has me feeling very melancholy about the whole thing. Last chapter, Rennie is now voted by a small council as the new president of Panem - I swear Game of Thrones had no motivation on this plot, I swear it lol, as I did a doubletake - plus by Criston's creating power, is able to speak via a device on his throat. These last eight POVs of the story will focus on the remaining eight characters and how they are handling the fallout with some definite surprises on the way. It is a mix of two and two for this chapter and the last of tribute and OC's, as an FYI. Please enjoy Chapter #37: A Nation on Trial.**

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_~ And so sayeth the Lord, sometimes the fruit you bear is because of how hard you yourself have worked. Do not fear the harsh winters or the hot summers, for all I will provide._

**_Lance Viel: Victor of the 79th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

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The September heat is hot on the back of his head, scorching waves of fire reaching down. Lance reaches up to tug at the back of his shirt, ignoring the glance of the patron next to him who sees a bit of his stomach when he raises his shirt, Lance smiling sheepishly before turning his attention for the bartender. He signals to the empty glasses next to a pitcher of water on the other side of the counter, making the number four with his hands. The bartender nods, bustling away to make the glasses, and when Lance looks back, the person who had shot him a dirty look has moved away and elsewhere, he not caring where. There must still be people who do not want Rennie as president, or those who are unhappy with Bonnie's downfall and the fact that there are rebel victors still alive.

Alive, all but one... Lance thinking of her curly blonde hair against the nape of his neck, or smile while she sips on a glass of wine as red as the paint on her fingernails, a saddening pit burying into his gut, it blooming a thorned bush that pokes out of his midsection. The waiter returns with the glasses, their hair the same color as Kevia's, Lance notes while holding onto all four with his hands, pressing them close to his body. It is a small walk from the counter to the table, but he doesn't mind the movement, being cooped up and stuck at the Panemian Council table all morning, he is happy to be out in the sunshine.

It is a rather unbearably hot day, which he finds rather odd, but the smoke has cleared and moved on since then, so there's nothing else to blot out the sun or bring the rain. The last week and a half has felt like an eternity, what with bringing the news to the entire nation that the insurrection in the Capitol has been successful, and because of it, there is a new president, and that new president will be picking a vice president, overhauling other semantics of Panemian policy, and with a live announcement happening in an hour, writing something into law that'll change the entire country's history forever. And it is a moment he might not get to see, Lance thinks briefly while on his walk to the nearby table, a saddening thought that vanishes with Valencia looking over at him and smiling.

She, Criston, Hale, and himself found a table at the café, _their _café, one Lance has actually never even learned the name of, ironically, just a bit away from the Gamemaker Center, which is still standing and did not burn down, even with the furtive glances Valencia constantly gives the building while having her back to it. There is a small pond next to the table, down below the floor and running up to a miniature bridge that connects the two pathways, it bustling with people. It is too odd, Lance supposes, that he expected the entire nation to come to a grinding halt with everything, but that hasn't happened, and just ten days after an avox rises to the station of president, everything has gone back to normal, or as normal as it could be with what has happened. Most of the fighting in the districts has come to a grinding halt after a few more press conferences with Amaris and Pollux at the helm of the discussions, Valencia offering her help to go and fight against some District 8 Peacekeepers willing to disturb the newly settled peace, but that is over once it ever truly begins.

Lance reaches the table, the glasses just about to fall out of his hands when Hale stands up first, reaching over Valencia to seize two of them.

"Thank you," Hale smiles at him in her motherly manner that only Hale Cornerstone knows how to do. She has let her hair down and is starting to let it grow out from the shortness that the Capitol prison had forced it to be, he noticing a slight ping in her chipper attitude, as if the last three weeks haven't happened... it _is _just three weeks ago when all of this really began, Lance realizes with a shudder. He hands a glass to Criston who takes it with a low nod, while Valencia starts breaking open a straw.

Lance pulls his chair back, glass still in hand. He has half the mind to simply crush the object in his palm, but he can feel exhaustion cripple in his fingertips. Personally, he wants to do it only so he could gauge everyone else's reactions. All three of them would most likely try to help him, alarm in their voices, but if it were Kevia, she'd simply snort in her glass, and tell him that he should've crushed the glass into his throat so she wouldn't have to look at his hideous face. He'd most likely throw a blood droplet at her. He sits across from Valencia, Criston across from Hale, and as the male victor from One looks over at his fellow district victor and protégé, another shudder wracks his body. Valencia's hair is still the dark black color that it had been forced to be dyed in after dissent from the districts... if she were to still have flowing blonde locks, Lance isn't sure what he'd do with himself.

"Hard to believe that even with all the destruction, our favorite café still exists..." Criston rubs his face with his hands, setting the glass aside, even though he asked for one.

Lance agrees with that sentiment. So much destruction has ravaged the Capitol, and when taking a hovercraft above the city to see the extension of the damage, Rennie, with his new voice modifier and the ability to speak thanks to Criston's genius has the ex-avox, new president swearing up and down the cockpit, saying curse words that Lance doesn't even know were _words. _If there's a budget for bringing the city back to the shining beacon that it used to be, he doesn't want to hear it, and it is Pollux who has to finish the remainder of the tour, Lance and Valencia in the back sharing flight peanuts and pelting each other with Styrofoam, he needing the moment of happiness. Valencia might not remember it, but at fourteen years old when the graduates for the Career Academy, she being the only thirteen year-old in the group for her advanced training, who'd be vying for the 100th Hunger Games spots, had a Styrofoam pellet war, it had been Lance and the shining pupil who remained victorious at the end, with Cyril, Satin, Marcus, Kevia, and others lying in a heap of them at the base of the training mats.

A sour taste seizes his tongue, Lance grimacing on his next sip of water. They're gone too, as Valencia tells him... Cyril shot in the face by Lazarus - _thank god that asshole is dead, _a part of him shares the sentiment while laying awake looking at the spinning ceiling fan - and Satin, as Amaris ruefully tells, with tears in her eyes as a huge surprise to almost everyone sitting at the table, crushed to death by a panicking crowd... and when asked further on why the crowd had been panicking, and then the tribute's response... Lance nearly hits the girl in the face, Rennie locking his jaw, and all Ponty can do is look ahead at her, hate bearing into her skull. Her trial is today, tonight rather, to decide what must be done with the elusive Amaris O'Hara, but Lance is deciding not to go.

He will be deciding to not do a lot anymore.

The victor from Two scoffs to herself slightly. "This is where Kevia and I had our lunch dates every year while mentoring..." He swears that for a second she looks over at him, eyes flashing with sadness and guilt and hurt and who knows what else. The beginning of the end, he figures, or the end of the beginning, Lance isn't quite sure. But yes, if the two of them had never gone on that dinner date, the same day Milor stabs the girl from Nine in the gut or Persephone smashing Corvus Raynott's face in with a hammer... he shoots the thought away as Hale bites on the side of her cheek. "Except for this year and all but-"

"I gave you the bomb here too," Criston says, interrupting Hale, who flashes him a glare, the younger man's voice cold and serene, looking directly at Lance. "The beginning of the end."

"Or the end of the beginning," Valencia smirks cheekily, elbowing Criston in the ribs playfully, before reaching over the table for a napkin to place under her glass of water. Lance bristles in place. What are the odds they'd be thinking the same thought as him. Who knows what marked it, truthfully. He doesn't care. All that he cares about is- well, he knows that no one else cares any longer; he's forgotten about, given that he won so long ago. "What's up, Lance? You invited us all here, and we never do anything if it's just for shits and giggles so..." she wriggles her nose in disgust at the phrase; he's never liked it either. Valencia asking him the question is something he expects, for she'll be the one to take the information the hardest.

"Yeah, I have to be on camera in an hour," the victor from Six buts in, looking at his watch, it shining silver in the sun. "Unfortunately it means I don't have a lot of time." Lance sometimes wants to hit the guy, but he needs to hold himself back, for if he reveals his emotion too early. Valencia looks at Criston doggedly, shooting him a rather disapproving glance, before looking back at Lance. Hale pushes her water to the side, sitting up to pay him attention, Lance suddenly becoming very self aware of his surroundings

Lance runs a hand through his hair, taking a deep breath. "I suppose there's no easy way to say this..." He takes another heavy breath, as if he were sucking in the entire sky into his lungs. "I'm leaving," he holds onto the rest of the sentence, unsure if he wants to finish the rest of it should Valencia, most likely out of the trio, decide to jump over the table and throttle him.

Valencia frowns, bridging her eyebrows together. "Yeah, that's okay...?" her voice rises up just a bit. "I mean, I didn't expect you to stay for forever, and I'm leaving too, but-"

"No, you don't understand," Lance insists, resisting the urge to slap his hand on the table for emphasis. "I'm _leaving._" Perhaps they will get the hint, perhaps they will not. He doesn't want to draw this out any longer than he has to, for it is already painful enough as it is. It is betraying her promise, betraying what Kevia has asked of him - "_Take care of them, take care of Valencia and Hale for me while I am gone,_" her voice whispers on the air and into the nape of his neck, but he ignores the feeling. He cannot stay, the painful memories of existing in Panem when everything he ever cared about has been ripped out of his hands... he holds back a choked sob. "I can't stay."

"You've already made up your mind, haven't you?" Hale asks, her lips halfway parted. "There's no way we're going to be able to convince you to stay, will we?" She reaches across the table to pat his hand, a gentle breeze blowing her hair in the wind behind her like a silver cape. Lance smiles somewhat, patting her hand and returning the sweet action. He's been forceful with her at times, a bit harsher than necessary - he thinks back to when Hale had approached the two of them, he and Kevia, on letting Hero and Victoria join the Careers because of what Milor and Persephone had seen in the training center, and how much of an ass he had been then - but she's his closest friend, if he thought about it.

And he's leaving her here, in this accursed nation, for no one will wish to follow him.

"What do you mean?" Valencia shoots the other victor from Two a inquisitive look.

Criston's eyes twinkle with knowledge, he nodding his head at him with a slight uptick of his left lip. "You thought of this awhile ago, didn't you?" Lance turns his head over to the victor, who finally takes a sip of his water. His dark hair is a stark opposition to the strangely bright sky, it being an expansive stretch of blue that goes on for miles and miles, there not being a single cloud in the sky, or any hazy columns of smoke lazily spiraling into the air. The remaining Peacekeepers sundered their weapons and their badges, becoming a force of soldiers and men without rank to do whatever Rennie and Pollux were to tell them, their first operations being putting the city back together. Lance will miss all of this. He'll miss all of it and more, before too long.

"I have," he says, trying to keep his voice level, but it rivets some, dipping into a lake and out of a river before drowning down deep into the depths, murky blue depths where Kevia's corpse will float above the water.

"Back to District 1, or-" Valencia bridges her eyebrows together.

"Not back to District 1," Lance shakes his head, trying to keep the emotion in his voice down to a quieter stance, but his throat trembles. He curls his hand into a fist, closing his eyes, tears threatening to spill free. He's cried about this already, he cannot break again, especially not in public, and not with those that have relied on his strength in the past. If Kevia were to see him now, she'd drag her dying, smoldering cigarette along his arm in a hazy line, a mark of shadow and agony and sultry kisses against a bathtub with the walls damp from the water, a musky smell on his waterlogged sleeves with cigarette smoke going into his nostrils. "I can't go back there. It's too painful, there's too many memories," he catches himself getting too far ahead of where he's trying to go, stumbling over his words, too afraid to spit it out. "Too many memories of _her,_" he says pointedly.

He hears her laugh at night.

He feels her hands on his hips at night, while he's standing under the torrent of rain in the shower.

Lance imagines he'll feel her for a long time while he lives.

"Where will you go, then?" Hale frowns. Frowning does not suit her, she is too young for crease lines to appear in her forehead, Lance notes while looking at her.

"I'm not staying in Panem," Lance says, his voice trembling once more.

It is as if his body erupted into radioactive material by the way everyone recoils away from him, and it is not disgust on their faces, Lance isn't exactly sure what the emotion is to be honest, but it is telling, a pit of sadness burrowing straight into his heart. No matter what they say, as Hale is correct, they won't convince him to stay. He will not go back to District 1, he cannot remain in the Capitol no matter how much the changing of the guard affects the city's atmosphere. The other districts are out of the question, for they've never been home. His home has been a place with a singular number above of it, and even then it isn't home to him anymore, not his home any longer.

Valencia builds the bridge first, leaning back to the edge of the table, though she is frowning, one hand resting on the cool metal, the other in her lap. "Out of Panem...?" She speaks slowly, as if the thought is just occurring to her. "But-" the victor stumbles over her thoughts for a second, blinking away a moment of confusion. "There's nothing out there. Nothing on the maps, as if Panem is the only place left in the world and-"

"Rennie and Pollux think otherwise," Lance interrupts, giving side eye to Criston who nods his head. The three of them have spoken at length about it before, Lance overhearing a few of the conversations, and there's nothing better for him to do then go out and explore the wild. North, that is the direction he has decided to go towards, beyond the fence line of District 7 and all of their coniferous trees, where the electrified fence will be electrified no longer, into the wild. All because of Kevia, which might be rash, he suspects, but Lance Viel is beyond the stage to think in rational measures. Some would probably describe it as a death wish, and if he were drunk enough, he might consider it to be one too.

"Alone?" Hale's voice is a bit more tense than the others, apprehension apparent in her tone. "Out to who knows where by yourself?"

"I'll have a sword, a gun... I won't be alone, Hale."

"I don't like it." The motherly tone again, the motherliness he cannot shake from her no matter how hard he tries.

"You're going because of curiosity, aren't you?" Criston begs the question, stirring the ice cubes in his glass around.

"What's north of Panem?" Lance shrugs at the trio of victors, those who'd understand. If Kevia were alive, he'd ask her to go with, but she would've complained about the humidity and outside bugs before they took a step beyond the tree line, and he'd leave her back in One with a warm cup of coffee and a nail filer, she polishing herself in a pink gloss while he cuts through the underbrush and wrestles with bears. Lance japes with that, but he has no idea what he'll find out there. No one responds to his question however, simply blank stares looking at him with confusion riddled all over their faces. "No one knows, and it is what I'm going to do. If I can't stay here out of the pain, maybe I can find somewhere new."

Valencia looks at him for a moment, lips parted, but she doesn't say anything, she simply looks at him, a silence passing over the table. An itch scratches at his arms, Lance unmoving while he sits there, raising an eyebrow. Valencia scoots her chair back, it making a harsh noise on the floor as she walks over to him. He goes to say something when his protégé, who has been silent the last couple of weeks from her encounter with Constantine in the Gamemaker Center, presses her head up against his, arms going round to his front in a hug, her hands crisscrossed to the opposite shoulder - left on right, right on left - while she stands behind him, he still seated.

He doesn't say anything, too caught off guard to say anything or to know what to even ask about.

"Promise me you'll come back one day," Valencia whispers, her breath warm against the back of his skull. She's the daughter he's always wanted. Kevia had mentioned something about kids, but with how often she smoked and drank, Lance figures it to be too much trouble that'd only harm the baby if they were to ever have one. "Promise me, Lance, that this isn't the last time I'll ever see you." Her voice wavers like his does now every time he opens his mouth, he feeling a wetness on his hair. She must be crying.

How can he lie to her now, in such a state of vulnerability?

"I promise, Valencia," he says, and Lance's heart drops.

What if he never wants to return?

What if he decides to never go back?

How would they cope then?

Lance hugs back, squeezing Valencia tight, keeping the smile on his face, while his brain and heart frowned and shouted at him, a rolling storm filled with lies and deceit, and above it all, Kevia and her pitiful, dying scream.

* * *

**_Vivian Whiplash: Survivor from District 10_**

* * *

Without the Games looming over her, or the thought of a terrible, horrible death at the result of white dogs holding a gun at her face, the Capitol is quite the glamorous city when she looks at it from a high-rise balcony, her hair blowing in the gentle breeze hitting her in the face. Well, if she overlooks the crater that has since stopped smoking, or a few of the knocked over buildings as if they don't exist, then Vivian can fully say that the Capitol is a beautiful city, and she is wrong to have hated it the way she did, though citizens living behind its glass walls still seem to treat her like a celebrity for being involved in the Hunger Games. Vivian isn't sure if she dislikes the attention, but being called _tribute _now no longer has the same ring to it, so she smiles as sweetly as she can, which almost kills her truth be told, before nearly stopping the impulse to wag a finger.

"Survivor," she tells herself, whispering so the walls will not hear her. That is what Pollux tells her just the day after they vote on Rennie being president, that the Capitol lives and breathes drama, and it will absorb every thought ever conjured up, and every word spoken. Well, to step over that hurdle, Vivian shall whisper instead, she smirks back at the interviewer, who just shrugs his shoulders. However, despite doing that, Vivian feels a pit of nausea flow over her in her stomach, as if someone had jabbed a knife into her gut and slashed it sideways, upwards, towards her clavicle. It's been a little voice, well little is probably not the word she'd use, but it is a voice inside her own head that does not sound like her.

It sounds like Tamerin and Maira yelling at her, while both of their heads are submerged under water, forcing her to stare at the sky with her eyes wide open, piercing through cloud and flesh, through rock and air. An invisible force with purple talons slashing at her face in the middle of the night, causing Vivian to rocket out of bed with her breath depleted, her body shaking in a chilled mummer, she clenching her arms tight while shakily getting a glass of water from the bedside table. There aren't any Avoxes around, Rennie, perhaps shortsightedly, releasing all of them from their bonds, instead replaced by care workers looking for a job, she knowing that Rennie and that victor from Six, Criston, are looking into being able to give every avox the voice modulator that he has on his throat, a power that deserves to be shared.

Her stomach roars at her again, Vivian biting down on her tongue to suppress a scream. The voice will visit her any time now, she expects it, the feeling always precipitates it.

"_You dare mock that word? You survived but many others did not. Cyril. Bloom. Vanya. Seth. Sage. Jason. Anahita. Maren. Where are your tears? Do you mourn them? They mourn you." _The voice is harsh on her ears, suffocating in her skull, Vivian pressing a hand over her left ear to silence it out some. Their names blip by in her head, glimpses of them in front of her eyes despite having them shut. Cyril's scars, Bloom's dark hair and commandeering voice, Vanya's prim and proper appearance, Seth's scowling, Sage's vivaciously bright hair with the purple mohawk... Jason, Jason and his lankiness, Anahita and her energy, and Maren's cautiousness; she feels it all wash over her, bile threatening to appear, she needing to lean forward some over a balcony.

A lump forms in her throat. "Shut up. I'm not listening to you."

"_And Rodric, worst of all._" How could she have forgotten about Rodric?

"I said I'm not listening to you!" Vivian snaps back at the voice.

"_Oh, my dear girl, I have you wrapped around my finger._" It coos at her, before leaving her, the nausea fleeting like a drunken kiss as it flies away through the ramparts and into the bright blue sky. It is a gorgeous day, Vivian notes, rather bitterly, looking up at it. Before the sky had turned gray due to all the violence, she had only ever seen the sky out of a window, for they were not allowed to leave the training center, and had it still been standing after all of this chaos, she'd refuse to sleep there, especially refusing to sleep there on her floor.

He's gone, and she never got to apologize to him. He's gone, and all he knows of her is how much of a bitch she had been. Vivian snorts, slyly grinning to herself while tugging on her ponytail, crisp white hair, the red ribbon back in, choking the strands like a yoke. The Tigress needs to reborn, but perhaps in a different manner, she supposes. She takes another look at the city, with its glimmering pillars and shining sidewalks, it feeling like a real place to live instead of one cooped up in tragedy and people walking on eggshells should the blonde tyrant have seen them talking in the shadows.

"There you are!" Ciphra's voice suddenly breaks through the mold, startling Vivian some. She turns around to see the girl from Three and the boy from Six - Survivors, her mind corrects, the right voice, her own voice speaking this time through it - appearing around the corner. She's been standing on top of one of the few balconies in the presidential mansion. Not... not the one where the end of the beginning began as Rennie pushes Bonnie off and over the side, but a different one viewing the backside of the Capitol, with its tall mountains stretching towards the zenith of the horizon, a solid, unmovable wall of gray and blizzard white. It is hot outside, in the September heat, but soon all of that will fade as well when the snows come. She hasn't seen snow in quite some time, a warmness flooding her stomach, while Ciphra steps up to the girl, a cheerful smile on her face. "We were looking all over for you."

"Criston and Pollux invited us to the signing!" Ponty exclaims, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. His body seems to glow and luster, the Capitol air doing wonders for him as he nearly skips about. The Capitol knows who he is, the citizens have heard of the Carr family hailing from the district of car smoke and smog and oil slicks, and he is piling up the available space in his room with paper slips of requests for glass blowing artifacts and stained glass windows, money orders and checks attached with paper clips and stapled... Vivian is surprised that some of them haven't been blown away by the breezes that have been rippling through the city at this rate. "Are you going to join us?"

That's today? Vivian nearly forgot.

She blanches for a second, half expecting the dark voice to return to her. It manifests in multiple people, sometimes it being Bloom, or Cyril, but it likes to appear as Rodric.

Vivian pulls on the ribbon some, feeling the tightening at the back of her skull. It keeps her focused, it keeps her tethered to reality so she doesn't float away. Her brother had always told her something similar, while on top of a horse, kissing the beast's mane before hooting and hollering into the sunset. _Do not let the vistas take you away, sweet sister. Stay here, where you're loved and wanted. _"Yeah, sure," she says, after a moment, her voice distant, echoing in her own heart. She is not sure if she's sarcastically responding to her brother's adage, or to Ponty's question. "Just give me a second."

Frankly, she doesn't want to go, not with the things she's holding. Well, not holding, but sitting next to her on the railing, the sun glinting off both of them, rays of light darting to the corners of the room that she would never dare venture towards.

Ciphra bristles at the sudden change in atmosphere, she frowning and taking another step towards her, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Vivian? What's the matter?" She peers at the two items sitting elsewhere, just aside Vivian's left elbow, which she has propped up against the railing. Ciphra's gaze darkens, her lips thinning into a straight line. "What are those things your holding?"

Without really saying a word, letting Ciphra keep her hand there, she turns to the side, grabbing the closest object to her. "Does this look familiar to you?" She holds it up to Ponty and Ciphra, both of them taking a step back out of shock. She - Vivian - has tried washing it out the best she can, but one of the blood stains will not disappear no matter how hard she scrubs it away. Vivian goes at it with soap, with her fingernails, with a brush... anything to clean off the golden ring that she's holding up to her companions. It's ownership has moved and changed, and- she cuts the thought off, but really cause Ponty makes a low squawking noise in his throat, as if he were a parrot.

His face is unreadable, but she figures it to be somewhere in the realm of disgust and disbelief. "That- that's Zola's engagement ring. The one she was going to give to her girlfriend, right?" She nods her head silently, pressing it back down onto the balcony railing. A beautiful object, yet it is somehow a symbol of suffering... all the pain that this tiny, inanimate tool has brought, and Vivian finds it in her care. She doesn't know whether to laugh about it or cry. "How- how do you have it?" he asks.

Vivian doesn't have to close her eyes to see it happen. Head Peacekeeper Lazarus, though she doesn't know it at the time, shooting Cyril in the mouth with his gun, the blood splattering everywhere and onto her clothes. Valencia's pained expression, Vivian's own yell rebounding against the walls of the Underground Defense, until the victor is clamping onto her wrist, dragging her away as Bloom shouts something in Spanish that she cannot understand. It is in the alleyway, running through the maintenance tunnel before Rennie is waiting for them at the other end that she finds it, glinting off of a light barely hanging onto a thread of wire in the ceiling. She scoops it up without thinking about it, until just a few days ago while patting the thing in her pocket and taking it out to glimpse at it.

She nearly drops it onto the carpet as if it is scalding hot, a yelp of fright ripping from her lips as she looms over the ring, looking at it should it wish to come alive or summon a demon through its hole.

"I picked it up when running away from the Peacekeepers after Bloom's orders," Vivian's voice is hardly that of even a whisper, she shaking a shudder off of her. "I didn't even realize what it was till last night and now I can't stop looking at it." She barely has enough fortitude to not look at it now, as if it is whispering to her.

"It survived the blast but Vanya didn't?" Ponty asks, his voice incredulous, an awkward silence filling the air as he realizes what he had just said. He blanches for a second, while Vivian and Ciphra stare daggers into him, he pulling at his shirt collar. "I-" He stops himself short, realizing what he had just said, closing his eyes for a moment, Vivian watching his nostrils flare open and shut. "I'm sorry, that was wrong of me to even ask."

"She had dropped it after her interview, didn't she? And then Vanya picked it up," Ciphra rests against the balcony railing, tilting her head to the side. Her emerald eyes twinkle at the object, lips parted, as if she were to reach out and touch it herself, but she doesn't move her hand. She simply stays put, disappointment creeping up in her voice. "I never asked him why it upset him so much."

"Probably because he wasn't as heartless as we thought him out to be, Ciph," Ponty elbows her. Vivian rolls her eyes at the nickname. Somehow, somehow that boy manages to find ways to just butcher everyone's name. No one gets to call her Viv, she'll cut their tongue out and make them eat it first.

She clenches the railing, vomit threatening to surface as she can feel it bubble in her throat, a chill sliding down her spine as the voice returns to her. It is a tone she does not match to a voice, a voice she's never heard before, an agglomeration of those she has come across in her life. Even standing in the sunlight, Vivian feels chilled, rubbing the sides of her arms with her hands, though she has no idea how she looks to the others staring at her. "_You judged him the moment you laid eyes on him. Do you remember? You thought Mr. Vanya Vasiliev and all of those he associated with were demons and deserved to die,"_ The invisible force places a hand under her chin, as if they are forcing her to look up into a gaping pit that would swallow her whole. "Do_ you still believe that way now?"_

_"Of course I don't," _Vivian bites back in her head, and then aloud, "I think I had judged him too harshly," Ponty and Ciphra had shared some words between one another before looking back at the girl from Ten who looked at them, shrugging innocuously, the survivor shrugging her shoulders. "I judged _everyone _too harshly."

Rodric most of all, but she does not need the voice to tell her that.

"Even us?" Ponty raises an eyebrow, voice affronted at the mere thought.

"Especially you guys," Vivian admits, a faint blush settling on her cheeks. So many of the tributes seemed to come from privilege, having money in way or another and not doing anything good with it. Cyril, Satin, Aris, Maren, Tach, Ciphra, Jules, Anahita, Ponty, Jason, Rodric, Vanya... even Bloom, despite what the girl stood for. What is she thinking, thinking like that? Tamerin's lips are chapped against hers in a kiss that results in her boyfriend frowning, for he can sense the displeasure that ripples through her at the sight of him... they had money at one point too, yet she never once opened her mouth. "I knew you had money, and a two weeks ago, if you had money, I hated you for it."

Ponty brings his eyebrows together, looking at her with a hint of disdain, but Vivian does not raise the alarms to fight off the look. It is a glance she has seen before, by way too many people thinking they're very satisfied in themselves, and from experience she knows it just means that they're upset at something themselves, unable to talk about it others. How hypocritical of her.

"What are you going to do about the ring?" Ciphra asks, her voice gentle, dark hair in two separate braids resting on her shoulders. She simply pushes Ponty out of the way, who protests by once again bridging his eyebrows together, but for the little bit of interaction she's had with her, Vivian likes the brainiac more, even if she can catch Ciphra looking at her a bit... strangely.

Vivian holds it in her palm, rolling it over the surface of her skin while the sun warms it and herself. This little object, in her care, and she doesn't feel like it belongs to her. Perhaps nothing belongs to her anymore, happiness most of all. "I can't hold onto it, it isn't mine to keep," she takes a deep breath, filling her chest cavity. "I guess I'll send it back to Eleven to Zola's parents if they're alive; they deserve to have that at the very least."

"And the other thing in your hand?"

Ciphra is pointing to a smaller gray pouch that is in her left hand, which had been resting against it for awhile. Occasionally, Vivian will glance over at it and push it around with her fingers, she looking at the pouch, smirking slightly.

"Oh? This?" she asks, before picking it up, bouncing the pouch up and down in her grip. "This is- well... it's Rodric."

Ponty's eyes bug out of his skull, and this time it is him who is knocking Ciphra out of the way to stare at it in disbelief. "What do you mean... it's _Rodric?"_

Vivian clenches down on her cheek to make sure she doesn't cry, because while the Tigress does not ever cry, this might be the sole time she breaks that promise. "Amaris told me how he died," It had been about a week ago, she outside, looking up at the stars, and Amaris, dressed in periwinkle and white, is incapable of sleeping too. In a normal world, Vivian would look the other way and scoff, but it is the girl from Six who takes initiative and forces the conversation to the front. "Aris knocked him out and forced her to take him with them when they went to grovel at the president's feet. They used him as a hostage to send the District 10 forces home before she hanged him, and then had his parents killed," It had taken a lot of self-respect and all of her will to keep Vivian from hitting Amaris in the face right then and there, she indeed crying under the pillar of moonlight where the silver halo reflects back on her tears, she seeing his face in them. "When they took his body down, they burned him," A dry cough catches her off guard, but Vivian speaks through it, anger circulating in her veins, a stormy red sea. "Lance and Hale found his ashes sitting on a table," She rattles the bag, it almost flying from her hand. The boy she wanted to kill at one point, and this had been his fate. "A table! A fucking table!" she screams, slamming it down onto the railing.

She pushes herself away from it, pacing to one of the corners of the veranda, pinching her brow. His voice, the last word she had ever said to him... the last word he speaks to her, she cannot get it out of her head no matter how hard she tries, no matter how hard she digs her nails into her palm to draw blood that never will appear... it is a curse, a curse that she has no name for. What if she had been kinder to him? What if, instead of pushing him away, the two reconcile in the fact that they've been brought into the Hunger Games together? No, that is an impossibility with Vivian Whiplash. Humanity is an impossibility.

"Vivian-" Ciphra starts, eyes filled with concern.

The girl shakes her head vigorously, the lump in her throat returning. "I was an asshole to him, and he died alone and scared and helpless," she lifts a hand aimlessly in the air at Ponty till it flaps down against her pants once more. "You, and Cyril, and Maren, and Anahita, and Jason... you all followed me after the training center collapsed and all I did was lead four people to their deaths, four people I thought I wouldn't ever care about," Her voice has a rattle to it, a bird cage where the parrot has died and only dust claims the vacant space. "I've done so many wrongs in this world, I thought I'd be able to do some right."

"You have done right and good things, Vivian. Don't say that," Ponty holds a hand out, but he does not approach her.

"You don't know my past. Who I've hurt and what I've done is-" She feels like she has said this before, but it must be said, for she gets too close and they die too. She cannot have them dying on her now.

"Is in the past, and I think it is safe to say whoever you were two weeks ago is not the same Vivian Whiplash you are now."

"You tell me this, yet Amaris is still a scoundrel and a devil?" Vivian raises an eyebrow, caught off guard about the statement. She looks at the artisan with surprise, tilting her head to the side.

Ponty opens and closes his mouth several times, brought to a screeching halt; his old district partner holds some sort of power over him that Vivian will never understand, but it is worth all the misery in the world to see him swallow a crow. "She- she's different."

"Is she?" Vivian crosses her arms. "She had the courtesy to tell me how Rodric went, and she also told me she couldn't watch what the president did to him. She had enough heart to do that." There had been nothing but empathy in Amaris's voice in their conversation that night, she leaned over with her arms wrapped around the Tigress's body in a hug as she began to sob into her hands, curled around the armrests of the chair as if they were a fortress that'd protect her, and Vivian does not yelp or bark at her when they get near one another, she simply lets Amaris stay there, and she's forgotten for how long that happened.

"She should've stopped it," Ponty's voice is solid, his jaw locked.

"Should she have? Would you have?" Ciphra questions him, observing this from the railing with her arms crossed over each other as well.

"I'd like to believe I would."

"It doesn't matter anymore," Vivian massages her temples, looking back at the bag of ashes. She knows where to put them, to bury them and scatter them in front of a bar or something, as that is where Rodric would've spent the most time. She has no idea what will happen to the Oxford family ranch when there is no one to take control of it, but perhaps that is not of her concern and out of her hands. "Ciphra is right, the past is in the past but I am not done fixing what I have destroyed," She pockets Zola's ring, letting its presence in her pocket calm her with a soothing sigh. "I told Cyril about some things I did back home, and Rodric as well, and I think when all of this is over, I need to go back home. To fix the things I've done, if there is room for forgiveness in this world," Would Tamerin and Maira even wish to see her after what she's done? The Peacekeepers are dead, Rennie could help but... she's not sure any more. Perhaps that ship has sailed onto the western horizon, and she must let it be. What does one do when they don't want anything to change at all? "If there's room for forgiveness in this world for me."

"There is, Vivian. There is," Ciphra's voice is warm. Kind. Forgiving.

"I want to believe you, I truly do," Vivian nods her head, her voice cracking, it sounding like she's gasping rather than speaking.

"Then why can't you?" Ponty frowns, resting his elbow on the railing.

"Because I can't," she says, smiling with a full set of teeth as if she were about to bite something in the neck. "Nothing in this world is ever that easy."

Another day of torment survives for the endangered species.

* * *

**_Pollux Aetos: Master of Ceremonies P.O.V_**

* * *

"Just a bit more to the right, Rennie!" Pollux orders gently, looking into the camera to see the shot, making a box shape with his hands as he juts them to the right, Rennie moving on camera through the lens in place to around the desk. "Perfect, stop right there," giving the man a thumbs up, who smiles back at him on the other side of the camera. Pollux rights himself so he's standing straight, taking the view in, a sight to behold. Rennie Davis, their new president, who is filling the role quite spectacularly he might add, is dressed in a fine amber suit, to match the shade of his hair, which has been gelled back, his diamond eyes bright and sparkling. A golden watch sits on his wrist as he then slinks down into the chair, Pollux beaming. The president is sitting down in front of a brown desk in a studio, the real mansion still being prepped for appearances with all of the holes and burned marks he's caused, at which Rennie ducks his head during the conversation for, smiling sheepishly. Two Panemian flags on golden poles stand erect behind him, the logo in all of its glory presented there, and with what is to be done, the history that'll be made? Pride swells into Pollux's chest, the flag will finally get to represent Panem for something great now.

Criston pats him on the back, nodding and motioning him forward so he can get placed into the shot, Pollux taking a step forward before nearly getting bowled out of the way by an intern clutching onto a coffee. It is always a coffee with these sorts of types, he figures, heartbeat rising temporarily while he finishes the walk. It had been something that is a long time coming, one sewed into motion by Lewlyn and Calhoun, to be laid into cement by Pollux and Rennie. If someone had been to tell him just a year ago that he were going to be instrumental in a significant change in Panem's future times two he might've spat a drink in their face, olive stem and all with their body coated in some sort of greenish liquid, but now that reality has arrived, anticipation building in his veins.

Pollux is dressed handsomely in a more modest ensemble of several shades of gray when he takes his spot by the new president on his right, left in the camera shot. Rennie takes a seat, slowly sinking into the supple leather that squeaks as his body presses into it, the chair the same brown shade as the desk. The lights are a bit blinding at this close up, Pollux blocking some of it out by placing his arm on his forehead to see Criston, with a headset around his neck, speak into a microphone, another intern holding yet again another cup of coffee scramble around to the front side, dropping something on the desk, and then rushing back. The interviewer's eyes appraise over the object, they focusing on a slim ballpoint pen, the color of it not needed, as Rennie reaches out to hold it in his hands. His skin tone is so surprisingly pale, but Pollux can tell that assuming the presidency has done wonders for Rennie's health.

Where before he would see the hollow gaps in the man's neck as a sign of being beaten down and being underfed, or the dark circles under his eyes with the nightmares that'd keep him up at night, those parts of him do not remain any longer. The thinness and frailty of the man's physique has started to be eaten away by a confidence that rushes into him at the best of times, Pollux applauding its arrival with trumpet sound. This is what Panem needed, this is what he needed, and he would follow the man into death and to battle one more time if it meant a golden future on the horizon. This might be the first person who truly deserves to sit in the chair - well, a different chair that is the same color back in the mansion, but there's a four by four foot section of roof currently crushing it to pieces - in a long time.

He used to revere the old names, those like Emrick Israel, and even Coriolanus Snow, and names older than that which he's forgotten about since taking Capitol history classes, but no longer. This is real, this is change, and this is right, what must be done. Looking at the gathered crowd who are huddled into the back of the studio, he sees Ciphra, Ponty, and Vivian all clustered together in the corner, Vivian's ribbon bright even in the shadows. Hale is close to Criston, who smiles back at the interviewer when the two lock eyes. If she's here then... Pollux's suspicions are confirmed, Lance Viel didn't stay around for the signing; he's already gone, surely, out to the Panemian wilderness and whatever lies beyond. Amaris O'Hara is off by herself, arms crossed over the other, she resting against the wall, and when the two look at one another, Amaris breaks the gaze first. He has pity for her, but at the same time disdain. He supposes thirty minutes from now he'll really decide what emotion reigns supreme.

Pollux shifts a folder on the desk some, angling it closer to Rennie and flapping it open, closing it immediately. It is too early to look at it, for what power the document has, chills sliding down his back while goosebumps erupt over his arms simply looking at it. Rennie glances up at the interviewer, who has really become his vice president as of late, since there's no need to have a Head Gamemaker or something of the sort that often has taken that position when everything in Panem has revolved around the Games. "Are you nervous?" Pollux asks him.

It is still taking some time to get used to the man's superpower - if he wishes to call it that, he'll call it that - as he sees Rennie press down on the center button on the black remote, it looking like the opener to a garage door when he stares at it enough times, for the voice to then follow. He's hired a speech therapy coach, for those who still have their voices and lost them partially, to help on getting Rennie to mouth the syllables, silently of course, along with the words so he is not looking like a ventriloquist, for there are still people out there who do not understand the thought of a mute man communicating with the masses and having a translator on hand at all times; Pollux can talk for a long time, but not _that _long.

"Nervous?" There's a hint of jovialness in Rennie's tone, he smirking, eyes bright against the dancing lights. "Nervous doesn't even begin to cover it. I am about to sign the most important document in Panemian history, which could very well end up blowing up in our faces. I've sent Lance onto god knows where since he can't stay here... and yes, I am president of Panem now. That was a stupid question, Pollux," their new president says back to him, Pollux smirking and shuffling his dark dress shoes. That has also arrived with the new role, the man getting more and more used to his position, the teasing and the snark has risen to a level that he has never seen come from Rennie, who has been known to do this already. He smiles at the jape, pressing one finger against the top of the chair.

"I understand, Rennie," he says. "It still feels right to ask," The sound of high heels clanking against tile while someone walks causes him to lift his head up, looking past Rennie, who has turned his head too to see where the noise is coming from. Stepping out of the shadows, the dressing room being that way, comes Valencia, Pollux's eyes twinkling at the girl's beauty. He used to think she had been nothing but a joke, another figurehead who'd hit a tragic downfall, but she's become so much more than that. Her dark hair is in one swooping motion down her back, a suave purple colored lipstick applied to her lips, a bit of blush on her cheeks, all of it topped off by the glittering red dress she had worn for one of her interviews with him glistening under the lights. She has high heels on, in a darker color, but it looks like Valencia has had practice in walking in them since she does not stumble once. Pollux whistles as she reaches the other side of Rennie's chair, fiddling with her hair. "Well, don't you clean up nice?" Pollux smiles.

"Thanks," Valencia says rather offhandedly, as if she is distracted by something. "You don't," her voice rather serious, but Pollux laughs heartily at it anyways, for he's been unable to tell if she's been joking or not lately.

Getting Valencia to appear in this moment had been like pulling teeth, Lance, Criston, Hale, himself, and Rennie all sitting down with her on several occasions to get her agree.

"_No," the victor from the 4th Quarter Quell insists, pushing apart the salad that Pollux grabs for her before stopping by her glass shack in Sector B, still standing, though the walls no longer have the same sparkle to them._

_"You probably have the second most recognizable face in all of Panem right now, Valencia, just under mine," Pollux reasons to her, dotting at his lips with a napkin, smearing some honey mustard towards his nose, he wiping at that with the back of his hand. "The people are going to need to see you there with us, as leader of the last Career pack to ever exist, as it is all dismantled. Just think of the power that will be contained in that picture," he spreads his hands open as if he were making a picture frame, the victor snorting at the sight. "The new president who had been an avox for the last few years, the Master of Ceremonies, and the last victor of the Games from District 1 no less, a staunch Capitol supporter heralding in Panem's new future... Valencia, you have to be there."_

_"Only if I get to wear a dress," she says after a few moments considering the information, biting on the inside of her right cheek._

_"Sold."_

Which is how they end up here, as Pollux shifts his spot some so Rennie can stand up, pushing the chair back some. With all three of them in place, the studio begins to quiet down as if everyone were taking in the sight all at once, the power that this shot holds. Criston raises his eyebrows, jades shimmering in the foggy dark, before holding a hand up to count them down from ten. Pollux takes a deep breath, fixing a loose thread on his jacket while Rennie drums his fingers against the desk. The interviewer sneaks a look at Valencia, who has her head bowed, eyes closed, she mouthing something to herself, which looks to be numbers, but he cannot be so sure. Criston then begins to count the numbers out loud, hitting one, and then the lights brighten, the camera feed begins to roll, and all three occupants in front of the table lift their heads to stare at the cameras zooming towards them.

Rennie nods his head after a moment, while the Panemian theme plays over the speakers, a bit louder than Pollux would like it to be, but they decided to do this indoors than outdoors in case the wind were to take the folder away, and that would be a disaster if the new Panem would begin in that manner.

"Greetings, citizens of Panem from all over. From here to the Capitol, and out to District 10 in the west, here in the Capitol, we bring you this special announcement," Rennie starts speaking, his left hand pressing onto the button, the remote taped to the underside of the desk so it wouldn't appear in the shot. "With me are Master of Ceremonies and newly inducted Vice President of Panem, Pollux Aetos, and the victor of the 4th Quarter Quell, Valencia Shale," Pollux nods his head at the camera when his name is said, all for presence, all to make his inclusion matter. "We all know that the last couple of weeks in this nation have been turbulent, but that is also to say we are looking at the last hundred years, after the Dark Days rebellion when presidential administration Israel run by Emrick Israel and Cain Passionia signed into law the Treaty of Treason, subjugating all twelve remaining districts to a brutish and cruel punishment known as the Hunger Games, a barbaric event that has taken root and gripped this country by the horns for far too long," there's an edge to Rennie's voice, a solidness in the tone, Pollux marveling at the device that Criston has built.

Looking back into the audience, he can see Criston and Hale nodding their heads at every word that the president is saying, and there are tears in the victor from Two's eyes.

Rennie continues his speech, "Henceforth from this day, we are no longer going to refer to the districts, District 1, and 2, and all of those numbers, as districts any longer. You do not live in ordained cities and territories for them to simply be described by a number. That system was used to undermine and demean this nation's citizens, and I will have it said that all it did was divide us, keep us from seeing the bigger picture where we needed to be united. While giving the districts new names will be something that is difficult to do, for there are thousands of possibilities out there, and more will come on that at a later date, for that is not why I have come to speak to you all..."

Pollux's heartbeat begins to pick up again, as Rennie sits back down in his chair, scooting it closer to the table, hands reaching for the manila folder, the entire room taking one collective deep breath together. The president pulls it closer to him, the interviewer's eyes following every single movement. Rennie takes a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling, his limbs shaking while he holds the envelope up to the camera. "This, right here, is change personified. Pollux, a few of the other victors, some other freedom fighters from the Phoenix Rebellion, and myself have scoured over the document to ensure that there is nothing illegal about what we are about to do," Rennie says, setting the folder down on the table, opening it. Pollux's eyes consume the sight in front of him, a written document with a texted copy stapled to the back of it, and it is not Rennie's handwriting on the document, but Ciphra's fine penmanship. Ink scrawled along the parchment, words that Pollux cannot read without squinting, but he knows what it says.

Nearly everyone in the room knows what it says.

Rennie reaches across the desk for a pen. "All of this began because my sister, and ex-Gamemaker, Lewlyn Davis, with Calhoun Rodney, former president, decided that enough was enough, and that the Hunger Games should no longer exist. During the 4th Quarter Quell, while I do not exactly know what took hold of them, they felt it was necessary to end them, and that had been their plan until Bonnie Rodney decided to get in their way, which is why I came out of the ashes," the pen trembles in his group, Pollux having half the mind to reach him and keep him steady, but in these moments, their new leader needs to appear strong, not weak. "Today, in front of everyone here in the studio, and to all of you watching live at home, I will finish what they have started. This document, which does not need to be ratified by the districts for I know their decision is to be unanimous, is to permanently disband the Hunger Games. All arenas that exist in Panemian territory are to be dismantled and destroyed immediately. Reapings are no longer to be held, Career Academies will be disbanded and turned into fitness camps and shelters for the hungry..." Rennie pauses in his speech, "And with all the archived footage of the Games kept in the Capitol logs, I will make it my personal project that we shall honor every single tribute who has died at the hands of this cruel, unfair system. Stars with lives cut too short..." he looks down at the document, pen in his grip.

Out of the corner of his eye, Pollux sees Valencia look at the president, lips parted, as if she were about to speak, but she stays in that position while Rennie hits the end of the pen, causing the inked tip to appear, it hovering just over the signed line. Two hours a day he sits the man down to practice his signature, it being so long since he's even ever held a writing instrument, but every day until Pollux is satisfied with the progress, hands shifting over each other, lips close to another and hair tingling at the closeness of their breath against the necks... Rennie leans forward towards the document, pen tip just barely grazing over the line, before he signs his signature, Criston signaling for the camera operator to move the camera to show over the document as Rennie finishes his signature.

The president leans back in his chair, before holding the folder up and to the camera, Pollux seeing on a monitor facing them via a mirror reflection that there indeed is a signature, blue inked and large with Rennie's R and D being the largest letters on the document, a vast improvement from the first signature he saw where Rennie is unable to even holding the pen properly in his group. The entire room breaks into applause, thunderous and raucous applause, cheering filling the room as Criston leads it, the camera zooming out on the document. Rennie hastes a goodnight to Panem, for their announcement is to be very quick, and very short, where there'll be a larger, more significant press conference tomorrow afternoon on the subject, but it is enough, it is symbolic enough, and that's all Pollux cares about.

He sees Criston and Hale throw their arms around each other in a hug, Vivian and Ponty whistling at the duo. Pollux looks at Amaris, who has not moved a single muscle, she simply nodding her head. Valencia squeals a sound of excitement from low in her throat as she throws her arms around Rennie, squeezing him tight, kissing the side of his head, before racing off towards Criston and Hale, the ladies meeting each other halfway, linking hands together, the victor from Two pressing her head against Valencia's, muttering sweet things to each other, though Pollux cannot make them out, while Ponty rests his arm on Ciphra's shoulder, the girl beaming from ear to ear.

Rennie runs a hand through his hair, tossing the pen aside, scooting the chair back, only for Pollux to tap him on the shoulder and draw him into a hug. He smells of cinnamon and lilac, a combination that Pollux has never tried before, but if change is happening, then change is happening and he might move out of his comfort zone to something he's never been a part of before. There are tears in both men's eyes, Rennie's a bit more profound as his eyes are bloodshot, he must've started crying just after the camera shifted focus, while the Panemian theme begins to play around the room again.

"I'm proud of you," he says, voice filling with pride. "You okay, Rennie? I mean, do you feel good about all this?"

"I'm supposed to be feeling good about this, right?" the president asks.

"Yes, then that means it's working," Pollux smiles, putting his hands in his pocket. There's a question he's been dying to ask him, but he hasn't worked up the gall or the bravery in asking, for the fact of getting turned down might be the most terrifying thing to happen to him in the entire world. "Rennie, do you think you'd want to grab a cup of coffee with me later?"

Amid all the cheering and applause and self-love going around the studio, all Pollux can focus on is how bright Rennie's hair is, how supple those lips are, and how much he wants to link a hand through his.

Rennie smirks. "Are you asking me out on a date or an opportunity to get into my pants?" It's a rather loaded question, one in which Pollux blushes from the tip of his ears down to mid throat.

"Well, I mean the last time I asked you out to dinner we did end up screwing six ways till Sunday..." the interviewer whispers in case someone were to wander over.

A blush now applies to the president's face as he pushes Pollux in the shoulder lightly, before resting his hand there. "I'd love to, Pollux. You're buying though."

Pollux doesn't quite know what he's doing next except that he's throwing his arms around the president in another hug, their two bodies flush against one another, coat jackets brushing against layers, he nestling his head between the man's neck, Rennie's hands landing on his back, hugging back. Pollux smiles to himself, opening his eyes again, and this time, they find Amaris O'Hara instantly, her expression gone mild, lips straight, gaze unassuming until they land on each other again, her eyes narrowing at him, body language representing sinking as it seems she morphs into part of the wall.

He can have his happiness later, for there is business to attend to right now.

* * *

**_Ponty Carr: Survivor from District 6_**

* * *

The studio had been rather warm, perhaps for everyone's body heat being shared and passed around among everyone, but the court room is freezing, Ponty's body covered in goosebumps of the cold kind while he rubs at his body vigorously, dressed up in a finer suit than what he had been wearing when speaking with Ciphra and Vivian out on the veranda back in the mansion. There are nearly not enough people in the room either, sitting in rows of what look like pews, hard on his rear end as he sits down, nearly falling off of it and onto the floor as they seem rather slick, like someone had come and spilled water down them. Ciphra is struggling too, in trying to stay upright while hitching her dress so it is not on the floor. Vivian prefers to stand up in the corner, against the stone wall underneath a stained glass window, Ponty looking up at it to see if he recognizes it as his family's work, but it isn't theirs, a golden knight with a drawn sword facing a line of soldiers in a field of battle.

Perhaps the knight is Rennie.

It is just them three, as well as Criston, who has brought his laptop, setting it down on a table at the head of the room. There's another table equidistant from it at the front of their section of pews, as that is what Ponty decides he'll be calling them for now on as long as he's in the room. Perhaps it has been a church from long ago, whenever the Capitol didn't exist, and they kept it here, for he knows that religion has never really found a place in Panem since its inception, though he's never question why that is the case. There's a journalist or a reporter, he isn't really sure their position or job title, speaking to Criston, placing a tote bag on their arm onto the pew next to Criston's computer bag, a handheld camera clenched in their other hand.

While the thrill and the rush of the fact that there will never be another Hunger Games in Panemian history for the foreseeable future on Ponty's radar, it is downed and embittered by the fact that there is something else pressing on the day's agenda, to happen right after the signing of the law for Rennie and Pollux want Amaris to see it before her sentence is passed on what must be done with her. It is her trial today, the girl, his district partner having two weeks of solace in the Capitol to enjoy herself, before the shackles of justice were to tighten their leviathan bite around her throat and yank her to the ground, leaving her hanging by her toes just so she'll be close, but not too close to actually hang herself. Ponty wants to hate her, he wants to cheer when Pollux makes the call for his head, but as Vivian presses her fingers into his neck and tells him to behave himself in the room while the sentencing is passed, an uneasiness churns in his stomach.

The entrance to the chapel, which is one of the only places in the city that, after doing a survey, most Capitol citizens would not stop by and interrupt to see the proceedings, are guarded by two massive doors with a black handles to tug open, Ponty struggling to even get the door open, for who knows how long it has been before someone has stepped foot into the hall. The acoustics are quite strong, for he can hear rather clearly the whispers of Criston and the reporter's conversation, he crossing his legs uncomfortably so he doesn't slip onto the linoleum floor, it being a wavy sea green color. That is not the choice he would've gone for, as the amaranthine from the few stained glass windows lands on the floor in a puddle of liquid violet, it looking like it'd smell like lavender.

A loud noise causes him to turn around as he sees the doors to the chapel swing open with a grunt, Valencia at the end of it, she having switched out of her dress into a more battle-style uniform, like a training outfit, her sword attached to her side, but also a gun in her holster. Does she have any idea how ridiculous she looks, Ponty wonders. Why bring a _sword _to a hearing? To a trial? Just behind her walks in Amaris, she dressed rather plainly against all the bright colors that had saturated the studio, some sort of off white color, she keeping her head high as Valencia points her to a podium just in front of both tables, Ponty seeing that his district partner is in fact not shackled or chained up, she simply having her arms in front of her, perhaps reflexively, as she walks.

The two of them lock eyes, but Ponty is the first to look away, resisting the urge to sneer, for he can feel Vivian staring at him through the back of his skull with the ire of a thousand suns. Amaris keeps her head straight as Valencia steps off to the side, Amaris getting into place at the podium. Pollux follows them in shortly after, a folder in his hand tucked close to his side, he still dressed in the gray dress outfit from the signing, he nodding at those present before making his way to the head of the chapel. There are a few steps leading up to what Ponty would call the stage, another podium at the top that the interviewer reaches, opening the folder. There isn't a gavel or anything, but Ponty feels the need to stand up, Vivian rolling her eyes in her corner, while Ciphra tugs at his arm soundlessly.

This is the moment he's been waiting for, to see what hails from the heavens down upon his district partner. Maybe he hates her. Maybe he doesn't; he's not quite sure. A silence fills the chapel, the only noise being the echo of Pollux's shoes on the floor at the top of the stage while he flips through a few papers in the folder.

"Thank you for coming today, Miss O'Hara," he says, smiling softly, his voice not warm, nor cold. Just... ambivalent, but Ponty wishes there could be rue and glee thrown in there. To scrape the knife across her ribs one last time, she'd most likely deserve that at the very least.

Amaris snorts to herself, moving her arms to rest on top of her own podium, Valencia resting one hand on the hilt of her sword, _the sword, _rather. The victor positions herself at the first step, looking at the three assembled tributes. Criston has his laptop open, his fingers typing away at the keys while the reporter goes down to one knee, taking a picture. "It's not like I truly had a choice."

"She's gonna step off on the wrong foot already?" Ponty leans over, whispering into Ciphra's ear.

"Ponty, I do not want you commentating on _everything._"

He moves back to a normal position, scowling. So what if he wants to see justice for all of those wronged by her hand? He'll never forget the conversation he had with her on their floor in the training center, the time where he nearly leaps across the room to throttle her. He had offered her help, help to fix the brokenness in her mind, but she refuses, even with tears in her eyes she refuses to do so. How come, then, it is Ponty lying awake and staring at the ceiling, feeling like the asshole that he is?

Pollux laughs slightly, looking down for a second, the curves of his mouth tilted upwards some, a pool of amaranthine light spilling onto his dark mop of hair. "No, I suppose not Miss O'Hara, but unfortunately it is not the time for jokes," the interviewer looks out at the gathered crowd of eight occupants total, Ponty nearly laughing at the idea. It is midday, the sun starting to sink beneath the sky, but even despite that, Ponty feels like he's been up for hours. Just standing here waiting, stuck in a rut of anticipation. "For the few of you gathered here today, per the president's order, I am to help give rule over how Miss Amaris O'Hara is to be judged today for her accused crimes during the Phoenix Rebellion, simply over the course of four days," he brings his attention back to the accused. "Have you been told of the charges?"

"Yes," Amaris nods. "Murder, treason, arson, which definitely did not happen, and-"

_All guilty. _Ponty doesn't need to listen to her say it aloud for him to believe it. His eyebrows perk up at the words she said, he standing up again, pointing at her furiously as if he were bottled lightning channeling a spark towards her. Ciphra is gripping the end of his suit again, and out of the corner of his eye, Vivian raises an eyebrow, she removing herself from the wall, hands balled into fists.

"She didn't deny the murder!" he exclaims. He's earned his route in life, to be respected by people and loved by the masses for the work he's done, yet this twat who dares call District 6 her home has had the road paved for her in a golden brick pattern, she preening about and cocking about... his skin itches simply looking at her.

"Ponty!" Vivian shouts at him. "I am about to hit you." He does not need to be told twice what else will happen, he clamping his jaw shut, sitting down at Ciphra's behest.

"Mr. Carr, please, your opinions will not help this process go over any easier," Pollux pinches the bridge of his nose wearily, sighing heavily so it rattles around the chamber of the chapel. "Miss O'Hara, I'd appreciate your side of the story please."

Why?

Why does she get to have a say in any of this?

Amaris shuffles on her step, scratching her arm. Ponty feels both Vivian and Valencia's gazes both on him, he quelling whatever protest or loud outburst he'd wish to say. He can't help it, he quite literally cannot help it. It must be the principle of justice and serving good, for the fight he's fought is not the same one as _hers. _"Certainly," she says, clearing her throat. "After the trackers were detonated, Aris Lindel from District 2 called me over and told me that he could sense something was happening that was out of our control, and that we needed to make the smart decision in the field before us, mentioning Mr. Davis's video and the comments the president had made during the tribute parade, though it hadn't occurred to me until Vanya had spoken to all of us in the training center," Ponty shudders at remembering the sight of seeing Tach's throat ripped open, blood washing all over Ciphra, he looking at the girl from Three in trepidation, she going as white as a sheet. "Rodric confronted Aris about something and the next thing I knew, I'm carrying him with Aris to Bonnie to offer her our services..." Amaris runs a finger down the side of the podium.

"What had been going through your head then?" Pollux asks her next, nodding to Criston who begins typing away again, having paused to look at how Amaris's body language is while she's at the podium. The reporter snaps a few pictures, Ponty blinking away the disturbingly bright lights that dance a tango in his skull.

"Currently, at the time, I was just terrified my neck was going to be the next thing to explode."

He is hard pressed to argue there. That had been every thought in Ponty's brain, until arriving in the Underground Defense, with Criston, Hale, Kevia, and Valencia all telling him that he'd be safe, that they'd be safe, but this is before Vanya goes in search of a golden ring, Bloom yelling about bombs and explosions, and the world rips away in a cloud of fire and ash.

"I wish it had..." he mutters to himself. What would a Phoenix Rebellion without Amaris O'Hara at the forefront even look like?

"With Rennie bringing the forces from the districts to the Capitol via the hovercraft trick he employed, it sent President Rodney into a frenzy, and she had Rodric hung in front of his parents after she forced them to surrender their forces," Amaris's voice is strangely distant, as if she is viewing it through a camera lens with it happening right in front of her. "I couldn't bear myself to watch it, so as punishment, Head Peacekeeper Lazarus Pietro made Aris and I in charge of a 'rescue' mission as he claimed it, since Ponty and Vivian and their group of tributes activated a Peacekeeper station in the maintenance tunnels," She locks eyes with Ponty, he glaring back at her. If only his hammer had found her gut. "I was told to use any means necessary in bringing them back, dead or alive... but I wanted them to all be living instead. That ended up with my company dead and Jason Lacey in our care."

"In your care?" Ponty echoes the statement with disbelief. "He _died _in your care!"

Amaris takes a deep breath, taking one step off of the podium as if she were about to advance towards him, but Valencia anticipates the action, moving forward as well. Amaris locks eyes with the victor, returning to her stance, setting her arms back on the podium, chest rising and falling lightly. Ponty wonders what her facial expression must be showing. Fear? Terror of her inevitable doom? Disgust? "During the Battle of Gamemakers Square, like Madam President did with Rodric, she had Jason's father, the mayor of Nine, at the mansion, and told Jason he had to kill her or otherwise everyone from Nine would die... and to make matters worse, she told him of his true parentage, which I do not feel at liberty to discuss," the girl shudders as if she just succumbed to a cold spell. "She killed him in front of his very eyes, and Jason lost it. I was told to shoot him, or he would've killed the rest of us."

"And you shot him?"

"I shot him, yes," her voice goes very quiet, she looking down at her arms, Ponty half expecting spurts of blood just to randomly appear there. "But, what made things complicated, and made things worse, is when Mr. Pietro told Aris and I about a block of prisoners, about nine hundred citizens accused of treason, and that we were to execute them all first light the next day... the same day all of this came to an end. Aris, at first, didn't want to do it, and I was against it all the way, but I didn't know what our punishment would be had we refused," He has to crane his head to hear her speak, she having gone even quieter than that. Ciphra tenses up next to him, she gripping his wrist, while Vivian moves in her own spot, disturbed by the information. "And so we went down to the cells, turns out Mirek Bosco and Satin Spinel were also prisoners, but that didn't affect my decision when I told the forces to open fire on the prisoners."

"So you were the one who gave the order?" Pollux asks after a labored pause, looking at his notes, flipping through a few papers. "A surviving citizen said you had gotten to a microphone and said, I quote, 'I apologize for what we are about to do,' before opening fire? Is that correct?"

"Yes sir."

She doesn't even deny it, her response is immediate, but her voice wavers.

"And after?"

"It might have only been a minute, but I couldn't believe how many people were dying in front of my eyes, so I told Aris that it was enough and- and he turned the gun on me," Amaris shakes her head back and forth, curling one of her hands into a fist. "I had wavered too many times in my loyalty, and Mr. Pietro decided I was a liability to be killed at any moment necessary. I ran as fast away as fast as I could, and led them back to the mansion where... well, we know how that turned out,"

Pollux nods his head, scribbling something atop the paper with the pen he has in his hand, before setting it down to pay his full attention back towards her. "What had been the thing to constantly make you want to leave, besides the threat of being killed, of course?"

"Something Ponty had told me the night before we were supposed to launch," Amaris looks at him, a rivet of shock sparking in his spine, Ponty jolting in place as her gaze pierces though him like he's a bone and she's holding onto a meat cleaver. "He told me that I was loyal to people who were going to kill me, and it turns out he was right," she even smirks at him, he swears it, before Amaris looks back at Pollux. "Back in Six, I've only ever killed people accused and found guilty of heinous crimes... _guilty people,_ but here in the Capitol, it's only been innocents, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to get a good night's sleep again, if I am honest," Ponty resists the urge to snort. "I should've hit Aris in the mouth then, back in the training center, but I..." her voice goes impossibly soft again. "I just couldn't do it."

For a few moments it is just Criston's typing and the clacking of the camera's shutter as the reporter takes multiple shots of the chapel and its occupants, Ponty looking at the Master of Ceremonies, who is scouring at his notes. He rubs his brow a few times, before setting the pen aside once more, resting his hands on top of his podium, clasping his fingers together.

"Miss O'Hara, I have to say I understand where you are coming from, but at the same time, I am also able to look down at your situation with thinly veiled disgust," A slight pause, Amaris nodding her head. "Serving two masters is never easy, and it is impossible, but sometimes extreme measures are warranted given the circumstances," Ponty raises an eyebrow, wondering where this will be leading to. How did she serve two masters? She willingly, _willingly _killed the people that have died by her hand! "Mulling over what you've said, with my conscience that you can be guilty and free, I do not have the heart in me to accuse you as guilty nor sentence you to death for the things you've done," Blood roars in his ears, but it is the way Amaris lifts her head in shock at what is said that is the kerosene to his lighter. "But I also do not have the easy of a mind to simply set you free," Pollux clears his throat, digging his fingers into his Adam's apple. Ponty would rather rip it out of his throat. "Miss O'Hara, my sentencing shall be, with President Davis to approve of it if he wishes, for you to be placed under house arrest in District 6, unable to leave your residence, until further notice. Is this suffice for you?"

No.

No.

_No. _

_That does NOT suffice. _

"Yes, Mr. Aetos, yes." There is no disguising the pleasure in her voice.

"NO!" Ponty screams, leaping to his feet, anger fueling through his body. All he sees is red, all he sees is anger, all he sees is wanting to choke Amaris out against the steps of this chapel, for out of all of the good people they've lost along the way, she's still breathing the air. She's eating their food, where he could be having conversations with Anahita over tea, watching Cyril swing a sword through a bushel of flowers... to watch Vanya dance for the gathered tributes... but he's stuck in a chapel, as his companion's murderer is set free.

He must be dreaming, as he pinches himself, trying to force himself awake.

"_Ponty..." _Ciphra groans to herself, leaning her head back against the surface of the podium.

"NO! NO! NO!" he screams again, pointing furiously in his direction, speaking with such vitriol out of his mouth that he's spitting everywhere, spittle flying from his lips, he not caring where it lands. "You heard her! You heard what she said, how she killed all of those people, and you're just going to let her roam free without a single punishment. She might not have killed anyone that allied with the Underground Defense, but she took Jason, she harmed us... and-"

"Why are you able to forgive me and not her Ponty?" Vivian frowns at him, while his own voice rebounds against the chapel walls.

He looks back at his old travel companion, rivets of judgement spiraling through him from the Tigress's predatory stare. She could devour him. "It's as I said- she's just-"

"I'm different," Amaris finishes the statement, locking eyes with him, a shiver running through his body. She's different. Amaris is unlike any person he's ever met, but he cannot put his finger on it. He hates her, despises her with every fiber of his being... but he'd be calling himself a liar if he didn't- he stops himself there, noticing the twinkle in her hazel eyes, the sadness reflecting back in his own. He's just unhappy, he supposes. A boat without an oar in a river of mud.

"Yeah..." Ponty whispers, caught off guard that shed' even be able to think of what he's thinking. He looks at her, mystified, his tone bouncing on that of hurt and disappointment, but even enlightenment if he were to open the cracks a bit further than that. "You're just different."

Maybe... maybe he is the one with the problem after all.

* * *

**Well, ladies and gentlemen, this chapter took a lot longer than I expected it to take me, and the word count is much larger than I anticipated it being as well, but here we are with Chapter #37: A Nation on Trial. A lot has happened, hasn't it? Lance will be leaving on a self-made mission to find himself into the unknown... Vivian is absolutely living with survivor remorse, the Games have been outlawed, and judgement has been passed on Amaris... or not, depending on if you're Ponty or not. Writing these characters has been an unbelievable privilege, and I am so sad to see it come to an end soon. I also feel the need to point out that this story is now longer than its predecessor, Sheep Led to Slaughter, but a rather considerable word count effort too, haha, I think that's amazing, incredible, and insane all wrapped into one! **

**Next chapter, Chapter #38: Monuments of Bone and Ash, is the last chapter of the story, the final epilogue, and I know for a fact I'll be crying tears of joy and pain and who knows what else will be flowing through me. We have four more povs to go through, starting with Ciphra, Hale, Amaris, and ending on Valencia, who I think after the two stories we've been through together, she's a fitting character to end the story with. If you've made it this far, I hope you stick it out for the end, which will come on Wednesday, July 15th, as that is a very important date to me. I will also have an announcement at the end of the chapter along with all of my review questions I like to ask, so please stick around. Your support and commentary will be very appreciated, and until next time. I love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


	38. Monuments of Bone and Ash (Epilouge III)

**Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets... and not only is it a brand new chapter... it is the ****_final _****chapter of Bombs and Bullets. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you have heard it correctly, this is it, the last hurrah, at Chapter #38: Monuments of Bone and Ash. I cannot believe we are here, and I cannot believe I have actually made it through two thirds of Slaughterverse... oh yes, guys, you read that correctly. Two-thirds of it, as there is one more last leg to go, but more on that later. I never really know how to feel when writing these chapters, as I am trying to work through the sobbing tears I am expelling, but I'm alright, I swear. Last chapter, #37: A Nation on Trial, has had Lance leave Panem for good in the time being to go on a journey of self-discovery, Vivian has collected some tokens of life, Rennie has outlawed the Hunger Games, and Amaris has been judged. This final chapter is through the eyes of Ciphra, Hale, Amaris, and Valencia - all girls I realized, coincidence - and I feel that Valencia is the best person to close this story out. I am seriously excited; today, Wednesday, July 15th, is the anniversary of me starting a fanfiction account... seven years later and 2.836 million words later we're here, and thank you guys for it. Enjoy Chapter #38: Monuments of Bone and Ash. And also, note to mention, the pov word counts are not even haha.**

* * *

**_Ciphra Longsdale: Survivor from District 3 P.O.V_**

* * *

The birds are back, Ciphra notes, with a faint smile on her lips as she brushes through her hair, holding onto the end of the comb with her left hand, long dark locks hitting the back of the chair while she looks at herself in the mirror. She's only partially dressed, having just gotten out of the shower, but she's always liked doing things out of order anyways. Her posture is a bit rigid as she looks at her reflection, Ciphra mindfully sitting up straighter as the hunch will only get worse, and so will the lump in her side. She rubs it absentmindedly with her right hand, frowning just slightly again while resuming her brushing. The birds chirp on a tree outside, she seeing them through the open window with the curtain drawn back, a cardinal sitting at the edge, perhaps entirely blissfully unaware of the doom they're perched on were they to fall without realizing it, its gorgeous red plumage glistening in the sunlight.

The shadows have never left, unfortunately, when she returns home to District 3 after being gone for so long, she carrying absolutely nothing but a sleeping bag on her back, drawn into her father's arms before she can say hello, her parents hugging her tight while Veracity closes the door to the Longsdale residence. Home smells of hickory and burnt rubber, there being a foul odor rising from the kitchen that her mother swears is not her cooking, but one of Mr. Longsdale's bright inventions, at which Veracity scoffs in an entirely undignified manner unlike his programming. Home is the spiraling staircase up to the second floor, to her bedroom with the velvet curtains and the carpeted floors, and to the tree with the cardinal that she's named Delilah sitting there on their perch, chirping happily away with out a care in the world.

How much of the world has gone undisturbed since she's been gone, Ciphra wonders. The fighting in District 3 hadn't been too bad, and her father even goes to help shut down some of the mainframe systems so the rebels can take over the mayor's home, but before there can be any real bloodshed - there had been a carpet bombing of a backwater poor section in the district named after the Overheart family, but that is the true extent - Rennie pushes the old president of Panem to her fiery death below, leaving the Peacekeepers in Three without a leader, and slowly, with tension still bubbling in the air that she feels between her shoulder blades as if someone had pinched a thumbtack there, things have slowed to a normalcy. She has been home for two days, caught up in the affair of getting herself reacquainted with District 3, and all of the incessant knocks on the front door by neighbors and citizens wanting to see the illustrious Ciphra, in no part thanks to Rennie's genius.

It has been three weeks since the bill outlawing the Hunger Games passed, ratified by all the districts, parties thrown in the streets for days and days until Ciphra cannot feel her feet any longer. Three days after Amaris's trial, in which Ponty heads back to Six before the girl does that following morning, Ciphra decides that it is time to go home. She misses her parents, and she doesn't really want to step back into that platinum glossed over city ever again if she can't help it. A few mere hours after making it back home with an escort that is Valencia Shale keeping the girl company, the new president is on the screen again, personally thanking three of the reaped tributes for the 101st Hunger Games in being instrumental to the stopping of tyranny in Panem, Ciphra doing a spit take as she sees her face flash across the screen with her name in lights dancing underneath. Ponty and Vivian are given their due as well, she immediately scrambling for the phone to call her with the good news, the two girls squealing about it for hours. Rennie clears his throat, face pale but he looking strong, mentioning as well the inclusion of Amaris O'Hara, who despite torn allegiances, helped the rebellion in a way only the girl knew how. To disobey direct orders, most likely.

She - Ciphra - may never go back to knowing what normal means, as the questions have never stopped, but for the moment they have, as she stepped out of the shower, looking at the cardinal, brushing her hair. Her closet is as full as it is from when she leaves, her mother telling her one night over salad and tea that she hadn't considered even throwing away her daughter's clothes, not having the heart to do so, before bursting into tears. Ciphra cries with her too, going up to the wardrobe and clinging to her favorite dress. With a coy smile, Ciphra sets the brush down, standing up and going to the closet, opening it. She picks the dress out, it attached to a hanger at the very back of the left side, she needing to move a heavy coat out of the way to hold onto it. She hugs the dress tight to her body, grinning into the fabric, ears faintly prickling up at the sound of someone climbing the stairs to her room. Ciphra has never quite understood the layout of their house, where the only rooms on the second story are her bedroom and attached bathroom while her brother and parents rooms are down on the main floor, and then the staircase to the laboratory underground where Veracity 'sleeps,' which is truthfully dormancy mode in his hardware.

After a few more seconds, there's the familiar grinding noise of cogs working as limbs move, and then Veracity is rather clunkily walking through her bedroom door, turning his head to look at her. The robot bows to her with a faint smile, her father having made some upgrades to the device's code. She wants to hug the robot, for it may have ended up being their saving grace from entering the mansion and stopping Bonnie, and that her father should get the due credit, but her father, hugging the spectacles tighter on his face, refuses. Ciphra knows that if she gets him tipsy enough on the gin in the liquor cabinet he'll cave, but for another time he supposes. There's another noise out her bedroom window, that is much harsher than a chirping cardinal, but Ciphra ignores it while she returns the bow Veracity gave her.

Panem's saving grace, she ultimately decides.

"Yes, Veracity?"

The noise is a bit grinding, the teeth and mouth work being the hardest part to get just right, her father claims, but that is to only mimic the speech that comes from the AI inside Veracity's cranium - not head, Ciphra corrects herself a lot on that, for in science, the words need to sound as uppity as possible. She doesn't know why, she didn't make the damn rules - begins to churn. "There is a phone call for you, a Mr. Criston Pellock on the other line back in the Capitol."

Ciphra smiles again, shifting her foot while clutching the dress to her body. While she is no longer fearful of her father's creation, the robot doesn't need to see her in any partial state of undress, it simply wouldn't be fitting. "Ah, okay," excitement rising in her chest. Criston calling her? She knows it isn't for a date and a rose, he seemed to give her the perceptive that he wouldn't be interested in anyone romantically if it weren't Valencia, and the victor herself doesn't seem to be fishing either, so it must be some other reason. Adrenaline flushes through her body as she closes the doors to her closet with one hand, looking at her reflection in the mirror. Then, with a pause, looking at Veracity who had turned around to leave, the sound from outside comes again. It is loud, as if someone were slamming their front door shut and moving a gate to a moving truck. "What's that noise outside?"

Veracity turns around slowly to face her. "That would be the neighbors next door prepping their house for moving. Their stuff will be trucked off to the train station."

Her neighbors. A pang runs through her, she nearly dropping the dress and exposing herself to her house robot. The Andon's. _Tach. _A tear wells up in her left eye, she scrubbing it away furiously, her knees knocking together. She's been home for two days and she's never stopped by to see Tach's family. Heartbroken, surely, for losing their son. However, her brow pricks together at the answer Veracity gave, she looking back at him, the robot standing there patiently, hands folded over the other in a maid-like stance. "Moving? Where to?"

"Your father spoke to them briefly last night, Miss Longsdale. District 5, I presumably believe, their of intelligent sound and mind."

Ciphra nods soundlessly, biting on her lower lip, looking into the mirror. Her green eyes are cold as they stare back at her, Veracity satisfied by their conversation, before turning around, reminding her of the phone call and to not leave Mr. Pellock waiting. She might let him wait forever, as Ciphra hears Tach's laugh in her head, the way he smiles at her during lunch on the first day of training, or the way he runs out of the train car with the hot tea spilling onto his lap... the panic in his voice while his fingers dig into his throat, trying to remove the tracker that is about to end his life. The warmth of his blood as it splatters all over her body, and her own scream that burns her throat raw. Ciphra shudders the thoughts away, the mirror coming back splotchy like someone had thrown water on it.

Why must her life be negative? Why must her thoughts only be clouded with despair?

She turns her head to face Veracity, who's just about to head back down the stairs. "Veracity," she calls, and the robot pauses, looking back at her, head doing a full ninety degree angle. Her father still needs to master that as well, the head movements. "You know, there was someone I met recently that was very interested in you."

If it is even possible, Ciphra swears that Veracity seems to bristle in place, a bit jarring to her, she even stepping away from the vanity with an eyebrow raised. Is... is Veracity _smiling_ back at her? "In what way, Madame?"

"Nothing like that, I promise you," her ears burn red in embarrassment, thinking back to when she asks her father, who silences her with a glare, that if Veracity is going to be a male robot if he were to have the male persuasion attached to him. The thought of Veracity and Tach- nope, her mind is not going there, she immediately filing it away in a 'never visiting or opening this drawer again' cabinet. "However, he was very curious of you, and the fact that someone just happened to have an automaton," Calling him a robot to his face, even if Veracity doesn't _feel _in the same way she does, let alone bleed, as she can see a droplet of oil splatter onto the wooden floor. "He wouldn't stop asking me about you, especially after my interview." A warm remembrance floods her soul, Ciphra slipping her fingers through her hair.

The robot nods at her for a second, and then, as if pausing for emphasis, a hint of sadness in the AI's voice, "Is this the gentleman you went into the Games with, Miss Longsdale?"

Ciphra's heart freezes for a moment, she looking up and locking her gaze with Veracity, who simply looks back at her, shining in the sun with the Panemian red and gold, an impressive coat of paint that must've been reapplied while she had been gone, for on the morning of the reaping that coat had started to fade. For a moment she bristles with anger, Ciphra pausing as she opens her mouth to speak. Why should she be upset that her parents and the Longsdale household would return to a normal life if she were no longer living there? Life would have to continue on, someone needs to pick up the pieces. The rage simmers back into the blue of her bloodstream, she swallowing heavily at Veracity's question. 'Yes," she says. "His name was Tach Andon."

Another pause, while Veracity then does another ninety degree angle with his body so he's facing Ciphra. "And was he the first..."

"Yes," she says again, her voice hollow and empty, trying to block out his scream. His dying scream, which Ciphra is not sure had been hers or his. "He was the first one to die."

"I am sorry for your loss, Miss Longsdale," Veracity nods his head again, making his departure down the stairs, the phone trilling again while he leaves, causing Ciphra to jolt in place. She's forgotten about the phone call, as that is her specialty. She hears the sound of the Andons front door to their house being opened and closed again, her body thrumming alive with energy. They could be leaving any second, and she'll never get the chance to... she races to the window, cutting the thought off. It is a close distance, as Tach had claimed it to be, when he tried swinging across it that one night to break into her room. Ciphra has no idea why getting told that someone would try breaking into her bedroom window to see a robot doesn't bother her, but she'd rather not dwell on it.

A lump fills in her throat, as she sees Tach's mother and father she presumes speaking to one another, the wife going back inside the house for something she figures, the father standing out in front on the gravel holding onto a box, a moving truck with a non-descript square logo plastered on the side. Ciphra runs from the window as fast as she can, throwing the dress on her as she runs, pulling it down over her head and covering her panties from view. Ciphra just barely dodges past Veracity who croaks in surprise, there seemingly being too many damn steps on this staircase. Shaking her head in disappointment, for the last thing she needs to do is trip, Ciphra grips the banister and vaults herself the last two or three feet to the ground, landing a bit heavy, causing her to stumble.

Her father is reading the newspaper at the dining room table, he also munching on a bagel, it halfway to his mouth as he sees his daughter essentially performing acrobatic tricks in their house. The phone rings again, but Ciphra ignores it, brushing her dark locks out of her face.

"You've got a victor on the line, Ciphra!" her father calls out after her.

"Then entertain him for me!" she yells back. "I'll just be a second!"

Ciphra bursts through the front door of her house, racing down the path to her home, in her bare feet, jumping over a rock. She crosses her yard and into the Andons, nearly launching herself at Tach's father, he having the same color hair and swoop of his nose that she could tell from the window. The man jumps at the sudden shock of an eighteen year-old girl quite literally leaping out of nowhere onto his property, a croak of protest and surprise forming at his lips, but Ciphra silences them by throwing her arms around Tach's father in a hug.

It might be inappropriate, but she doesn't care; she's not missing the chance to say goodbye.

"I'm sorry I've never spoken to you two before," she says, hoping to all things holy the man is not about to deck her. "I- I'm Ciphra Longsdale, the girl who was reaped alongside Tach for the Games this year," a lone tear slides down her cheek, it hitting the gravel very similarly to Veracity's oil spill. Tach's father finally lowers his hands onto Ciphra's shoulders, she having her arms wrapped around his back. "I can't imagine how painful it is to have him gone, but I- I just wanted to tell you that he was an amazing guy," she sniffles, trying to not get snot on his shirt. "Tach was funny, and kind, and sweet, and caring and... I'm sorry," the floodgates break, Ciphra incapable of holding the tears back anymore while clutching onto polyester. "I'm so sorry that this happened to you..."

She is not sure for how long she cries, over even if Tach's mother comes outside to see the commotion, but she stands there, holding onto his father, who hugs her back, who she is certain is crying too, because she can. Because it felt like the right thing to do, and Ciphra Longsdale has always done the right thing.

May he be living with a million and one Veracity's wherever he is, while she lives in Panem with just the one.

* * *

**_Hale Cornerstone: Victor of the 87th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

It is a strange concept, freedom. She may have only been Bonnie's prisoner for a very short time compared to who knows how many people have been harmed in the Capitol's clutches, but it still stings, she can still feel where the shackles and manacles kept her trapped while flush against the featureless wall. Hale doesn't realize it just yet while walking around the Capitol with Kevia and Hector by her side that she's _free, _and that if the rebellion were to go any other way, she might've ended her life before there would have been a moment for them, the unnamed enemy, the enemy she refuses to give strength to, to take her back to their domain. If she did that however... Hale blanches at the thought while looking over at her kids. Arianne and Elias smile back at her while tossing dandelions at each other, wading through the tall grass that reaches Arianne's midsection, and up to Elias's elbow.

Hale turns her head back to the water, sitting down on the stony shore, her feet in the lake, breaking through the sapphire surface. She looks at her reflection in the water, it occasionally breaking up due to the wind, a gentle breeze that blows through every once in awhile. It is her, she sees herself as one does, but it is not her at the same time. There are scars dotting her forehead that have never been there before, pale sinew marks of torn flesh and blackened spots just at her hairline that she'll never be able to wash out. The silver in her hair is vividly similar to the silver glow on Lazarus's uniform, Hale freezing once in the bathroom whilst drying off after a shower on changing the color, but she has no idea what she'd put in its place, the silver part of her as she is a part of the silver.

Her eyes are a bit more tired, a bit forlorn, she still needing to squint whilst being outside, as the harshness of the light in the prison cell will never go away, for it is never turned off. It is like that constantly, a supernova that never explodes while she's trying to sleep, having Hale toss and turn all night with the sounds of- nope, she won't think about it, she decides, firmly shutting her jaw and clamping down on her tongue. If this were District 2, she'd might feel the need to be more expressive, a bit more in touch with her emotions, but she's in District 10 currently, staying at their Victors Village home shared between Arizona and Hector's residences, though those homes are no longer being used just to house victors since, well, Rennie signing off the Hunger Games and all. She's still crying about that, and it's been nearly a month since he signs the document.

She goes home shortly after that, trying to pick the pieces back up. Arianne and Elias do not leave her side, nor is she about to have them do anything of the sort. Valencia is with her for some of it, and there's some messages from Lance, who is hanging around the fringe of the country before heading off to the wilderness, those having stopped two weeks ago now, he venturing into the wild. She's sad to see him go, but she understands. Hell, Hale is surprised she isn't following him herself with how much loss she's experienced, but in a way, there's no way she could abandon her children, and there's no way she could ask them to accompany her, as that'd be foolish. They do stop in Two for a brief moment, as there's a funeral held for Ellison, the old bat. She misses the man, he being her mentor for the Hunger Games, since he had won before the Katniss and Peeta era of the Games, those two years deciding so much for the nation of Panem... and now look at her, being a victor deciding so much for the nation of Panem.

"And all because of who I have sex with..." she mutters to herself, shaking her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ears.

It is a lovely day outside, there hardly being a cloud in the sky, but the heat is nothing unbearable, Hale deciding to take the kids out for a swim in the lake by their house, it really just being a hop, skip, and a splash from their back porch as she can see the wooden railing and the deck paneling. Hector told her a story, she having forgotten it now, of that being the floor he's on when Lazarus comes for him, when all of this began and all of it ended. She looks away from the deck, swallowing a bit of bile that rises in her throat. Returning to Ten feels right, where she wants to stay since this is where her kids grew up. Their 'mother' Hailey is gone, Hale never liking her in the first place, for she saw the way the woman wanted Ari just for the money, never truly caring for those kids.

Did she fight when Kevia and Bonnie asked for the kids? It doesn't matter, the woman is gone, most likely dead, but Hale doesn't want to dwell on that any longer. It is in the past, and she has been rooted in the past for far too long trying to bring Arizona back from the dead, and seeing if rubbing sawdust together will conjure Hector up out of thin air... and Kevia, she presses a hand to her ribs, and if the good lord in the sky could form someone out of a human rib, she prays that it would be Kevia landing on that wooden deck. It needs to be repainted.

The sound of Elias making a noise, a sad sound of noise, causes Hale to turn around with a frown. Arianne is stepping away from her younger brother, while Elias bends down to pick something up in his hands. Her dark hair is even darker in the illuminating sunlight, like bands of rubber flowing together in time, while his is a fresh glass of lemonade with the glass shattered and running white streaks down to the tips of his forehead, water logged and soaked, damp with sweat. Hale reaches her kids, her feet dirty from the ground, but it doesn't bother her. She had stepped in far worse in her little cell, her little prison of destruction and nastiness.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" she asks Elias, bending down so she's level with her son, looking at him in the eyes. He is such a beautiful little boy, and she'd do anything for him. She'd do anything for Arianne as well, but Arianne has always been her own thing, her own firecracker who has been able to take care of herself moreso than Elias has with his sweet smiles and gentle, delicate voice. Almost as if the boy is too pure to live in Panem with a Rodney president at the helm... but in Rennie's Panem, maybe he will be fine existing where he does.

"Arianne stepped on the dandelion I wanted," the boy pouts, fingers digging into the dirt before snagging up the plant. He holds it up for Hale to see, the grass itching her arms while she then rights herself out of it, unless she wishes to sneeze all over her son. The dandelion is crushed, the speckles and tuffs blowing away in the breeze like a melted snowflake. "It's all crushed up looking."

"It's dead, Elias," Arianne says, rather coldly, holding onto another that she plucks out of the ground, blowing it away with her eyes closed. Hale looks at her daughter in admonishment. That had been rather harsh coming from her sweet girl of _eight, _but Hale almost forgets that fact now when looking at her children. They've seen far worse than many adults will ever see in their entire lives, and it'll haunt them forever. She wants them to forget. She wants them to forget that any of this had ever happened to them, and at such a young age, perhaps she can be lucky and pray that it occurs. Elias matches his shocked look at his sister's violent language, but Arianne simply shrugs under the stares. "I mean, it is."

Hale purses her lips, swallowing the bit of fear that bubbles up in her stomach. She and her daughter might be more alike than she's ever believed them to be. She has Arizona's dark hair and eyes and her tanned skin, but there's a spirit within the girl that acts like a chained beast lashing out with claws threatening to slice up the bars and someone's stomach if they're unlucky enough. She, Hale, as a little girl... a person who believes the world would bend to the will of a nine year-old who has a growth spurt way too early and decides to spear dummies with blue stuffing for a living, until that dream is a reality and Hale is amid the sea of dead bodies she's slaughtered while the trumpets sound around her, horns championing her life and her success.

Is it a success? Is it really a success now that it has her waking up in the middle of the night, throat going sore from all the screaming?

She shakes her head, biting on her lower lip. "That is not what I would've said, Arianne."

"Am I wrong though, Mom?" Arianne looks at her, a pang of guilt rushing through Hale's body.

She is no idiot, and she's an idiot to think her kids might be ones like that, those who don't understand the concept of death or finality in life, and where those bodies go after their spirits have vacated whatever bits of time resorted to them on Earth. Being a Hunger Games victor has her thrust into the spotlight, and since it is known that Arianne and Elias are children of Arizona Merviere, publicly on record after all, the spotlight is really on them. Arianne knows what she's done to survive, Elias a bit lesser than, for Hale's mind is still searching for analogies to use, ways to figure out how to let the kids down easy that the biggest role model and person in their life is a monstrous tyrant when someone puts a knife in her hand, as that knife is going to enter someone's neck shortly thereafter.

"No, Arianne, I suppose you're not."

She hugs Elias close to her, motioning so Arianne can fall into her grip as well. Elias sniffles, and if it is over the dandelion, then Hale might need to have a talk with him, when he speaks again, nearly flinging Hale into the lake from the emotional whiplash she feels slap her across the face. "Is that where Dad is? And Uncle Hector? And- and Aunt Kevia?"

"Where what, sweetie?" Hale asks, trying to feign as much innocence as she can in her voice, although from the way Arianne seems to slip out of her grasp, she is not doing a good enough job covering up for that. How- she looks at Elias, stunned, lips trying to form words, but all she holds onto is empty space that leaves her lips chapped and cracked. What did he just ask her? Dad, dead? Hector, dead? Kevia, dead? Her head is swimming, Hale hearing the roar of blood in her ears, but she remains upright for as long as she can, holding on as long as she can before she sinks into the muck of the lakeside.

"Dead?" Elias finishes the question, he reaching down for another dandelion. His voice is steady however, despite the questions he's asking, but Hale's heart is the opposite while she stares at her children. How does someone fully, truly explain the concept of death to a seven and an eight-year-old? Frankly, is she even able to express it to someone her age who hasn't gone through losing anybody else significant in their lives? Hale shakes her head, trying to blot the image out, but as Elias says it, she sees it. Arizona's body quite literally exploding on impact where even his scream seems to shatter into waves, fragile shards of amaranthine noise blocking together and dissipating in the dark of the train tunnel. Her sobs are heavy, but so is Kevia's cursing, and then, with another sinking feeling in her chest, she remembers.

Arianne and Elias were there too. Kevia had to cover their eyes from seeing what happens, but she knows that two hands can only cover eyes, not ears. They've heard her scream for her husband, for their father. They've heard Bonnie tell them to lock their mother up and throw away the key. What else have they seen in the silence, what else have they heard in the shadows?

Hale takes a step back from both of her kids, who look back up at her, she trying to stay positive by painting a smile on her face, but even as she does that, her jaw quivers slightly, blinking hard and fast to hold back tears. She crouches down in front of them, holding Arianne's hand in her left, and Elias's in her right, her son blushing at the contact, but Arianne stays focused, hyper focused in fact with the little girl's eyes narrowing in on her mother. "Do you know what death is? What it means to die?"

The two kids look at one another for a moment, Hale having only her heartbeat and the occasional chirp of a flying canary to accompany the silence that radiates between the trio. Elias and Arianne speak to one another without words, a feat she's always wanted from her own kids, but she can see it in them, the mutual understanding. Elias nods his head, deferring authority to Arianne. "One moment they're here, and the next they're not, right?" Hale nods, too speechless to say anything. As a kid, while training for the Games, starting just around Arianne's age, she hadn't fully known what death even is yet, except maybe a long sleep in the ground to wake up again, and she even asks her parents why one needed to sleep in the ground when they 'died,' but all she can see it is as would be so they could take space for those up on the surface... the foolish idealism still sits in her heart somewhere, waiting to be unlocked. "I used to think, from what Dad told us, is that it was a long nap where halfway through..." her daughter licks her lips, looking down at the ground for a moment, she going ever so quiet.

Elias blinks hard as if he's trying to blot out a bright light, before picking up where his sister left off. "And then they decide they don't want to stay up anymore, right?"

Hale smiles through the tears that are now falling down her face, but frankly, she doesn't care anymore. She's tried for so long to stay strong for them, and she will always be their anchor, she'll always be their rock that her kids can tether and arrest to in their moment of need, even if they do need her their entire lives, though she hopes that's not the case. "Yes. Yes, that is something like that," she presses a hand against both of their hearts, feeling the thump of them underneath her palm. "You learn about your heart and blood in school, right?" Both kids nod their heads, Hale licking her lips. "Well, sometimes, a person can go into their slumber easier when they loose a lot of blood by being cut."

"Like- like a paper cut?" Elias asks, blinking, his voice on the edge of breaking, although Hale has already spilled.

"A paper cut that is ten times worse, sweetheart," Hale says, pressing a hand to her son's face, smiling through the mistiness. There's no need to jump into the lake, for she's soaking her face at this point.

"Is- is that where Dad and Hector and Kevia are now?" Arianne asks, and for the first time she sees her daughter's lower lip buckle some, her jaw quivering. "Gone and sleeping in the dirt for they lost too much blood?"

Hale nods her head, the tears flowing free, a shaky, audible gasp emitting from her throat. This is it, the first time she's really ever thought about it and faced it head on. Her husband's gentle hands pressed on her shoulder blades with a soothing kiss on her forehead, or Hector's kind voice on the phone as he watches the Merviere/Cornerstone kids play in the water, and hell, as she seems to clearly misjudge Kevia before the end, the woman's sarcasm, who'd be on her right now faster than spit on a hot skillet to man up and wipe away those tears, despite the woman sobbing through her own mascara.

They're gone, her kids loosing so many figures that are important in their lives, while Hale then holds on by a thread, to be strong for them as Lance demands it. She holds them close to her, sobbing, hoping, pleading and begging that somewhere out there in the Aether of who is watching her that they forgive her for the display of emotion, for the damn nearly collapses the moment she feels both Arianne and Elias wrap their arms around her to match the hug, Elias digging his head into her neck, while Arianne rests her head on her shoulder.

The victor sobs and clutches her kids tight next to the lake, the very lake where Arizona holds up a dandelion to Elias who blows it away, wishing for something that every kid always wishes for, wishing for world peace. Arizona, Kevia, Hector... they fought for that peace, and they've died for it.

"_One day, my child," _Hale thinks to herself while hugging them tight, "_You'll see your dream envisioned. One day, my child._"

She'll try to give what her husband could not, she can sense no other purpose in existing any longer.

* * *

**_Amaris O'Hara: Survivor from District 6_**

* * *

He's back again, she believes, just by hearing the tread of the Capitol official's shoes on the staircase up to the main level of her house. It'd be the fourth time this week, if that's the case. Amaris looks up from the book she is reading, some non-descript title that has her simply picking it as the title has been worn off now, it being a decent read that has kept her entertained the last couple of hours, for being cooped up in a house that is actually not her home, away from her parents and other family members as due accord to her 'punishment.' A cup of tea is sitting next to her on the coffee table, she reaching over to take a sip when the Capitol official steps into the quaint living room, there being a mild fire started in the fireplace in the corner, it crackling alive with smoke and embers wafting towards the ceiling. No, the mini library is not made of wood paneling, otherwise Amaris would never set the fire off in the first place.

She freezes from taking the sip of tea, looking at the man in the eyes with a raised eyebrow. The official is dressed in all black and white, a matching ensemble that looks really well, for those are President Davis's colors - it is strange on the tongue to say, Amaris just indeed so used to using President Rodney as a daily term in her vernacular, whether it be using Calhoun or Bonnie as the figurehead. She's never really been focused on the politics of it all, becoming a wide-eyed recruit at the age of sixteen because she flips a few fighters and other potential recruits over on the sparring mat, the sadism in her bubbling to the surface as she thinks about stepping on their necks, but it is reserved for the criminals, for those who slaughter a family in the dark of night and believe they can get away with it. Those are the screams she relishes in, not the cries of terror when Jason watches his father slump over dead with a bullet hole in his brain spilling crimson out of everywhere. It is the one she'll hear for as long as she lives, Amaris expects, but perhaps that is her punishment for what she's done. If it is not the executioner's blade, by which Valencia Shale would surely be the one holding onto it, then maybe being haunted by her mistakes will keep her up at night instead.

It is what she says to him on his first visit, when he simply wants to hang out on the windowsill, arms balanced on the other side as he stands in the shrubbery to gloat at her new predicament. Amaris finds it foolish, for all it does is make him look devastatingly beautiful by moonlight as silver pillars fall on his ebony skin, highlighting the bulge of his arm muscles, to which she sneakily asks him if he'll kiss her again like he did on the train the first time they met, and he closes the window shut, nearly taking off her fingers. The second visit, she is outside, the few instances she gets to be outside, and he's stopped her from going inside her home with a bag of groceries on her arm, the plastic starting to leave a ring in her wrist that she might coat in glitter. He's a little less barbed, lowering his guard down some as he apologizes, but doesn't specify for what. She has a few ideas, but keeps her mouth shut, instead admiring that he is still even pretty in the daylight, a lucky blessing for men.

The third time is just three days ago, she missing him somewhat in her gut, a fire building that has yet to erupt. Part of it is from the pain of seeing his face every day, instead of hoping that one of the mortars or Constantine's mutts could've ripped him to pieces, but also the fact he gets to scream at her and walk away unscathed, Vivian rolling her eyes, Ciphra telling Pollux and Criston she'll go after him, and because Amaris is repeating what he said to her over and over again in her head. _She's different. _What does that mean? _She's just different. She's just different. She's just different._ Amaris lets the syllables roll off of her tongue like a red carpet, stepping onto one of ends of different like releasing her mouth off a straw with a satisfying _pop._

What happens when it is because he's different?

It is not the first time Amaris has seen someone try to woo her, the word making her roll her eyes and nearly dry heave, there being a prisoner or two who sees breasts and thinks they can land in the leprechaun's pot of gold, but that has the girl smirk and make the accused die by a firing squad instead of getting a single lethal injection to the neck, for that must be more painless than getting their innards torn open by platinum bullets. However, with him, it is... well, it is different, the irony not lost on her. She sees the way he looks at her, in these talks, and how it is not just bridled hate that flares in his eyes, but lust, and pain, and sorrow, and kindness, euphoria, joy... Amaris could probably list off every adjective in the dictionary to describe how he looks at her, but she hopes he sees the way she looks at him.

"Him again?" she asks, after a momentary pause to take a sip of the tea, she liking it hot so she doesn't have to taste its bitterness on her tongue, and if she scalds off her taste buds, all the more reason, right? It isn't exactly the pain that flushes through her body and makes her stomach feel tight, but truthfully she's never spoken it aloud, so... Amaris breaks focus from that to look at the Capitol official. Getting an elite escort by the last victor of the Hunger Games is indeed quite terrific, for Valencia shows her where Amaris will be staying for the duration of the isolation, it being a single story house that requires a staircase to get to the front door, a small basement underneath where her bed is, a small library and a miniature television set in the corner of the room to not go stir crazy or freeze to death, a bathroom, a kitchen, and that's it. Something she can definitely survive in, afraid for a moment she'll be in the prison cells underneath the presidential mansion.

"Yes. Shall I bring him in?" The man, although she hasn't learned his name yet, is her favorite. He's the guard she gets every weekend and Wednesday, the other man that watches the household to ensure she doesn't do anything stupid, like flee for the hills, being gruffer and louder, a thick and wispy beard that makes Amaris wonder if he even has a mouth when he talks, but doesn't want to make the sentence worse by asking the question, as it does feel inappropriate despite the humor involved.

She nods, throwing her hands in the air rather aimlessly. "Not like I have anything better to do but entertain him, I suppose," Amaris smirks setting her novel down. There is something else, on how their third visit goes, when he knocks at the window of her basement, she letting him in out of the cold before they... no, it really isn't that important she supposes, when the official nods at her, stepping out of the room to presumably let him in. Amaris sits upright, throwing the blanket off of her body which is keeping her warm. It is getting late, around seven or so, but she expects, if he were to stop by, to be by at around midnight or near somewhere in two in the morning, but this'll work too while it is still light outside and the sky bleeds carnation pink and sunburst orange.

Amaris reminds herself of her posture, where even if she were to go back to work - the very thought of that sounds insane and foolish to her, the career of becoming a Peacekeeper has died, and she's certain that Rennie Davis is going to abolish the system altogether, now that there has finally been a settlement of peace in the nation - that the wiles and rules of her job are not lost on her. The sound of boots on the hard wood stairs match the beating heart in her chest as Ponty Carr comes into view, her old district partner, dressed in a gray shirt and slacks, his face somewhat sooty, but that doesn't matter, for he's seeked her out, and she has no idea why.

He looks at her, and she looks at him, eyes falling over his body - god, what is his workout regiment? She needs it - before it travels lower to the bottle that Ponty is holding. Amaris raises an eyebrow. She's heard, from the faint voice that comes out of the TV, that there's to be a meteor shower, so is that why he's here? To watch the meteor shower with the girl he supposedly despises and has want to see dead ten times over with a million papercuts haunting her for the rest of her life? "What's the bottle for?"

Ponty raises an eyebrow back, but it is supplied by a smirk too. "Not even a hello first?"

"Hello," Amaris says, and then juts her head in the direction of his hand. "What's the bottle for? I don't drink wine."

"Well, luckily for you, it's not wine," Ponty keeps the smirk on his face, setting it down on the table that holds the tv set, though he places it down a bit harder than she expects him to, it rocking slightly back and forth, almost tipping over. She'd have him clean it up, she's not about to do housework from someone else's mistakes. "But you do drink champagne, right? I bought it on a hunch."

Amaris shifts some on the couch, going back to grip the book, narrowing her gaze at Ponty. None of this feels right, all her senses brimming on high alert, burning a hole in the back of her head as if something is about to snatch her away into the rafters out of the shadows. In a worst case, the book gives her an extra second of living before her entrails are everywhere on the ground, or at best, it gives her enough time to run through the side window and out into District 6, but then her ankle bracelet would go off, electrocuting her and leaving her a writhing mass of unrecognizable flesh in the streets. "I drink it," she says evenly, eyeing the bottle. Will it explode? "Did you come to see the meteor shower with me? I don't think there's a ladder to get onto the roof and-"

He cuts her off with a wave of his hand, always so decisive about it. Amaris notes that he's tense, as if he is about to spring away like a rubber band prepping to pop. It is not so much on his face, but how his shoulders seem to go just a few centimeters in than where they normally are, from the times she's spent looking at him, studying his form. Not that she's spent a long time looking at him or anything, but just trying to keep the Peacekeeper regiment up to speed, in case Rennie does ever call her back to the White Way... she coughs fiercely, clutching her chest.

"Not for that, no," he's searching for something, but she's not sure what, trying to follow his gaze, but the coughing fit has her preoccupied at the moment. "It's for a celebration."

"Celebration?" She recovers just in time to almost bowl over in another coughing fit. Celebration for what? Her execution date? Pollux did say to her in court, in that chapel, that her case could be revisited at a later date, and it is a later date in the foreseeable future. Amaris grips the sides of the couch in alarm. Will she die and not ever get to see her parents again? Will she find Rodric and Jason and Aris and Satin and Mirek with her in the ninth circle of hell when she goes? Would there be Lazarus looking her up and down just to sentence her to another demise for failing the great nation of Panem or-

Ponty's jubilance shatters her panic like a freight train rushing through it, knocking bricks to the side and leaving dust in its wake. "Do you have any glasses?"

"In the uh... in the side cabinet in the kitchen," Amaris points them out, Ponty practically leaping for them, she watching him move, although her eyes do eventually wander to his ass. Which is quite nice. How come she's never noticed it before? Living in this isolation has her staring at old men and their behinds instead, as that is what Rennie gives her, with the electric anklet to remind her of her place, but when Ponty wanders in to see her, those are the tantalizing moments that has her mouth watering. "But try not to make a mess..." she winces while there's the sound of clatter, but hopefully nothing breaking.

Ponty walks back in, holding onto two champagne flutes, before popping off the cork, the fizz spilling out, Amaris groaning into her soles. Of all the messes he can make, it is from the foam... she tries to ignore the stemming rage that froths inside her stomach, similar to the foam spilling out of the champagne bottle and onto the floor, from cracking his neck in two, but she likes living and she doesn't mind Ponty's company- wait... Amaris bristles to herself. Did she just think that? She shakes her head, biting down on the inside of her cheek while Ponty sheepishly smiles, dabbing at the carpet with his foot when handing her the champagne flute, the liquid a bright halcyon color with bubbles sparkling to the top. He holds his own glass out to her which she clinks to the side of, still confused as to why, but he downs his, making another.

"Why the celebration, Ponty?" Amaris tucks her legs underneath her while she sits on the couch, a rather awkward position, nestling the glass in the crook of her ring and middle finger. "Besides, it's not like you to be cheerful and happy around me anyways so-"

"This is going to come as quite a shock to you, I imagine, and it was a shock to me at first," Ponty interrupts her, she glaring at him, but he passes right over her. Always has, always will, Amaris figures. "But, Rennie and Pollux were doing some talking and some thinking, and Valencia joined in too on the discussions, and they even asked for me, Vivian, and Ciphra to give opinions and..." his voice trails off as he takes his second swig of his own flute, swallowing every last drop before setting the glass down. Amaris moves forward some, hoping he won't sit on the table for the tv, for that'll have it crash to the floor surely.

"About what?"

She'd never have expected his answer.

"Rennie wants to elect you as the new Head Peacekeeper for Panem."

Amaris could've been knocked out of the window by a baby blowing on her. She drops the champagne flute, swearing all the while when the liquid spills over her shoes, scrambling forward to dab at it. Frustrated, she throws the blanket atop it, though that might've ruined it. However, as she lifts her gaze to look back at Ponty, he is simply staring at her, mouth parted open, eyes admiring her, eyes judging her, but at the end of the day, he is _looking. _Not looking in the way one might just happen to see someone they know walking down the street, but he is _looking _at her, knowing her, getting to understand her, and then the words hit her again.

They- she's judged as guilty for being stuck between a rock and a hard place, to be sentenced to live on her lonesome for forever and ever while her old district partner and enemies of the court hound her for her decisions to then be put back into the system? Amaris's heart beats in her chest a mile a minute. "Wh- what?" she asks.

"Rennie wants to-" Ponty starts, but she shakes her head.

"No, I heard you the first time. He wants to..." she's at a loss for words. Amaris O'Hara is never at a loss for words. "Head Peacekeeper? Why? Surely you must be having me on."

"I'm dead serious, Amaris," her district partner moves off of the tv stand, to her happiness, but she keeps her gaze on him. This... Ponty must be lying, it must be the wool getting thrown over her eyes, certainly. "You were the best candidate they had. It was always in the back of his mind, I believe," Ponty holds onto his champagne flute, twirling it around in his hands, sending more droplets flying into the abyss. "Rennie and Pollux knew that they couldn't kill you, and I was wrong to think that it would've happened because you followed orders..." he shakes his head back and forth, locking his jaw. "I've done a lot of wrong things when it's come to you, I realize..." Ponty's voice drops some, Amaris's heart fluttering in his chest. "Anyways, the people they wanted either turned out to be too duplicitous for Rennie's liking, spat on him in the interview, or refused. And then they landed on your name in the file and well," his left hand is holding onto the glass, his right hand free, he tossing it in the air aimlessly to hit his pant leg when it fell back down. "Rest is history."

_Rest is history._

"But... still..." she says, trying to draw syllables together to form a single coherent thought, but there's nothing coming to mind, nothing's working, and it's all blocked out.

"Rennie will officially draw up the paperwork tomorrow, and then two days from that, expect him here, at this house, to give them to you and ask if you accept," Ponty shrugs his shoulders. "It's all up to you," Amaris goes to say something, not quite sure what she wishes to say, but he must connect their minds in the middle, knowing immediately while he continues to talk. "And if you refuse, since he took the gamble of giving you the position of a lifetime, there's no reason to make you a prisoner," he smiles at her, Amaris almost getting knocked out from the shock. It is a genuine smile at her, not one with a hidden agenda, but a smile. "Besides, he knows you're the best he's got. Loyal to the T, if not too much, but now with the experience you have of the Capitol, he's learned that you have learned to draw your line in the sand and that if things tip off the deep end..." Ponty hangs the sentence in the air some. "You'll know to cut the cord and let him drown in whatever puddle of shit he makes."

He is looking at her the same way she saw him look at her on his third visit to the residence. When he comes inside and sits at the foot of her bed, Amaris has her knees tucked to her chest, trying to stop from stuttering over her words, though the effort is to no avail. They must have talked for hours, there being the brightness of a dawn peeking on the horizon when she's finished, Amaris spilling her soul to him, and he has a hand pressed on her knee, forcing her to look at him, and while he doesn't say anything, he draws her into a hug, she crying into him. The people who have died by her hand, Amaris has never lost a night's sleep over it, but the moment Bonnie yells at her to squeeze the trigger and Jason's body falls over dead, or all of those Capitol citizens die when she gives the order as her fellow Peacekeepers shoot down their own brethren... to Aris's sly fucking smirk when he draws his own gun at her, for she is just a pawn in the great game... Amaris has it all in her head.

She cannot sleep.

She may never sleep again.

Amaris tilts her head to the side some, wondering why he hasn't left yet. He hasn't even filled in the flute. "Ponty?"

He stirs some, lost in thought as he's looking at the pattern of the carpet. Ponty clears his throat, curling his left hand into a fist. "I- uh..." he coughs somewhat, a faint blush settling on his cheeks. "I didn't stop by just to tell you the good news, no," her former district partner scratches at the back of his neck. "I came by to apologize."

"Apologize? You've already apologized-" Amaris starts, but as usual, he doesn't let her finish.

"No, you don't get it," he shakes his head back and forth. "I was an absolute prick to you," by which she snorts back, for she had been no decadent angel, she most certainly still is not a glistening cherub with gorgeous white wings and a lyre clutched in her hands. "And even just a month ago at your trial I was an asshole and I- I couldn't see your side, I couldn't see your stance or where you were coming from," Ponty lifts the first up to the underside of his throat. "I wanted to hate you for simply existing, but when I couldn't get satisfied with that I wanted to find ways to dislike you, but even then..." the fight in his voice seems to dissipate, for there is anger coming from him, but Amaris is not sure if the anger is for her or for the situation they used to be in. "I am sorry, Amaris. I should've never acted that way towards you."

She accepts it. She has no reason not to, or to not...

"I'm sorry too, Ponty," she says, nodding her head towards him.

"I shouldn't have called you psychotic." No, he shouldn't have, but it had been an amazing burn that Amaris wishes to keep in her back pocket for later.

"I shouldn't have hit you..." She thinks she's the hot shit, despite being reaped just hours ago before that moment, for a guy she doesn't even know, and a name she seldom recognizes to look at her up and down, it sending her off the handle while she hits him, but he hits back and kisses her and- her mind is swimming.

"Hey, it was a good hit!" Ponty smiles back at her, again, making her knees knock together. A pause passes between them, Amaris taking note of how his body seems to relax, yet tense up all the same, like coiling a spring or waiting to pop a balloon while the needle pierces into the rubber ever so slightly in a way to break the tension. "Through all of that, I- I've come to realize that you're just... _different. _And, that different to me, though I think it is why I hated you for so long is because I think I-"

Amaris is off of the couch faster than a speeding bullet, essentially running at him, but moreso running into him when she presses her mouth against his. She is just different, the different that Vivian and Ciphra couldn't figure out, the different she couldn't figure out until he visits her just a few days ago to hear her out for hours and hours until the sun rises. She is his _difference,_ and he's hers, the way she sees his eyes appraise over her, still judging, perhaps incapable of ever losing that, but she understands it, Amaris understands it more than the rolls of the Earth or the rapid expanse of the sky. She understands why she's attracted to him, the desire to sculpt him into a piece of clay that will have ever lump and bump discovered, to the point where every unmapped freckle will not be out of place.

His words are choked off by her lips on his, he smelling of smoke and sulfur and ash, and rolled over plastic, or the gaudy and taudy leather that comes from rich hags who clutch purses while shopping the Carr's wares. Ponty's hands find themselves on her shoulders, hers resting on the small of his back, for they are nearly the same height, the two of them moving over as the tv stand rocks a bit, and the champagne bottle spills onto the floor, but Amaris doesn't care while the roar of blood soars in her ears, and he bites down on her lip. Her tongue slides into his mouth with ease, he gasping at the movement, she flinching at his, but for a split second, she's with him, he with her, as the halcyon liquid glides over her bare feet. For a moment, she can feel him thrumming underneath her hands, against the rigidness of his shoulder blades as they move apart from each other.

She breaks the kiss first, locking eyes with him, searching, ever so searching for an answer, but all she gets is a smirk in return.

"You..." Ponty breaks off, slightly out of breath, looking at her as if she is the craziest woman in the world. "You have any idea how long I wanted to do that?"

"Oh, I take back the apology about hitting you, then," Amaris smirks, and then goes back to kiss him again.

She will not need to worry about building a monument of hers, a memorial for Amaris O'Hara, out of bone and ash.

Hers will be solid gold, for all those she's failed, and for all those she'll eventually safe before the world melts away.

* * *

**_Valencia Shale: Victor of the 100th Hunger Games P.O.V_**

* * *

She hears the hovercraft land before she sees it, the jet black wing tip just slightly seen out of her foyer window, Valencia pulling the curtains back to see the Panemian logo, the Capitol logo and the insignia of the president on the hovercraft. She is sitting in a chair by the window, waiting for the sun to come down, as just after that, the meteor shower is expected to hit, and she'll call her parents outside, they taking naps upstairs after a day of moving and cleaning, but Valencia expects that her plans are about to change, and whatever the change is, it either can be the best news in the world, or the worst news in the world. The world has been quiet on the western front, an expression she borrows from a history book she's reading from somewhere around two hundred-and-fifty years ago, something known as WWI, Valencia finding it fascinating, for it sounds like a story, and it makes the Hunger Games feel puny in comparison.

Valencia is happy to be home, to be home with her loved ones, with a family who cares for her very much, as after all, everything has come to a halt. Things are picking back up again, her expected duties, halfway becoming Rennie's personal bodyguard for a few days ending when she feels the high rise buildings of One calling her name, singing it a sweet song of childhood memories. She asks for permission, though Valencia expects that after what she has done and what she's been through, she'll never need their permission again, to leave, which Rennie readily grants. Her time in the Capitol has been exhausting, escorting the four surviving tributes of the Phoenix Rebellion home on separate days and train rides as to not draw too much attention to them while traversing the torn up Panemian countryside.

Amaris is the best trip, truthfully, the two girls finding themselves in the solar and chatting away, but moreso it is Valencia learning about the Peacekeeper from Six and how she's found herself in the situation she's in. Vivian is more kept to herself, holding onto a golden ring and a pouch of something that Valencia does not ask about, how the girl holds the bag tight, the entire ride, but when they arrive in District Eleven, and not Ten, oddly enough, the girl hugs her tight, muttering some sort of warm thank you. Ciphra's is a rather exhausting time, for even the hints of darkness that run in the girl's veins are drowning in a sea of optimism, enthusiasm, and excitement about the world and simply living in general, Valencia comes to find out. Ponty gives her a lesson on how to make stained glass windows, but the victor simply nods and smiles, soured by the last few interactions they've had, but she also expects that she'll never, _ever _be using that tactic.

When Ponty is sent home, after then making the decisions on whether or not Amaris O'Hara is a good choice in elevating to the status of Head Peacekeeper, something that has the victor on guard about, but ultimately relents the opinion to those that'd know her better, is when she decides where she needs to stay. Living in her glass house, that is surprisingly still standing, has her shocked, but left alone and terrified in case the floorboards were to awaken in the middle of the night, dragging her to hell with them as nails rattle. She can still picture Constantine standing there on the threshold, knocking and rigging the doorbell incessantly after their first meeting, and although she legitimately only saw the woman five times in the total of two weeks, she cannot picture the woman's gray hair anymore without hurling into a trash can.

She sets the book aside, carefully stepping over the letter she has placed just at the foot of the rocking chair. It is from Lance, the man she is sad to see go, the call of the wild upon him, but she understands it, she does. She isn't as close to Kevia, despite the woman being her personal trainer, Lance having helped Marcus - perhaps not enough, she surmises, otherwise Marcus Pharadane would be the victor of the 100th Hunger Games instead of her most likely - but she misses the woman, and that her last words she had ever spoken to her with nothing of poignant significance, a seed of regret billowing in Valencia's thoughts as she cannot even remember what it is, but now she's gone. There's a gravestone for her, placed in the graveyard where all of the dead tributes and victors of the Hunger Games go, and that is where she finds Cyril and Satin's new headstones placed as well, though Kevia's grave had been made long ago for everyone does expect the blonde haired woman to return to the dirt earlier than anticipated. She says a few words, leaves a rose or two at each headstone, but finds the tears springing up earlier than she also anticipates, vacating the graveyard before she can break down and sob.

Valencia has cried enough tears, she should be out of them by now.

Lance has found something called Niagara Falls, though she has no idea what that is, and he even has drawn a picture, they being a waterfall of some great importance, she trying to track just how far Lance has been, but she constantly keeps forgetting that it has been a month since he's left the Capitol, asking Rennie to be sent off in a hovercraft to the edge of District 7's coniferous edge before vanishing into the woods. It is a written letter that she has in her hands, but there's some strange technology allowing Lance to stay in contact with the president if he wishes to, which he clearly is wishing too, but it's been a few days since the last report. No matter, Valencia sets it aside once more while heading out to the front door. She takes a pause, a lump filling in her throat.

The victor looks over at the mirror that is adorned on the wall, this hallway being the connector from the living room to her front door. She isn't locking at her reflection, though she is seeing her womanliness hit her more and more with each passing day, and at the dark circles under her eyes from the lack of sleep she gets when Peri's body hits the concrete, or as Sage's body is peppered with bullet holes, or she sees her darling burn to death... but she doesn't look at her reflection anymore, there's no need. It required a lot of pleading on her part, some false promises she'll try to fulfill sometime, and Rennie's bleeding heart, but there it is, when she presses her fingers on the picture taped to the far right corner of the mirror. Persephone Castor looks back at her, smiling radiantly, Valencia's heart fluttering in her chest.

It is not a new picture, of course. It is taken however on the night of the tribute parade, before they're dressed and ripped apart by their stylists, she in the mock training uniform, her hair spun into curly locks, dark skin glistening like warm chocolate, that smile of hers making Valencia almost swoon, and she presses a hand on it, closing her eyes for a moment. It is her, a part of her, so she'll never forget what Persephone Castor looks like lest old age take everything away including her memory, but as long as she has eyes... she'll remember. She will end her life before that ever goes, Valencia swears it. However, clearly there's business outside.

She opens the front door, stepping outside and into the courtyard of the Victors Village, the hovercraft parked weirdly to accommodate it between the fountains and the other houses. Valencia holds her arms tight to her body, it starting to get slightly chilly in the September nights, early October nights, when they're as far out west and north as District 1 is in Panem. She knows about Rennie's project, to name all the districts to something that isn't number oriented, in giving them some vibrant life and color, but there hasn't been a consensus yet. It is Rennie's particular hovercraft given his insignia on the side of the left wing that faces her house, it being a chessboard of black and white tiles with a red and gold outline. The other non-personal hovercrafts have just the chessboard picture, but for Rennie's the Panemian touch, it'd be impossible not to.

He's standing there, just out in front of her, over by the water fountain, sitting down, holding something in his lap. Valencia approaches him timidly, he looking up at her by the sound of her approach, smiling warmly. The patch on his neck is still there, it will always be there by Criston's genius, and he must be holding onto the remote in his pocket. She's dressed for bed, it being around eight-thirty, a little late to see him, for he didn't even call, as is expected should a Capitol official wish to stop by, but Valencia isn't about to complain. He looks healthy and strong, and while he's never looked sickly or weak, here... it is quite the change, for there is even the formation of muscle in his shoulders and upper body, Valencia smiling, arms going wide to hug him, but Rennie holds out a hand, turning the thing he is holding towards her.

Valencia stops, eyes taking in the sight of Bonnie and Calhoun's baby, the little girl that she's seen and never got to _see, _he holding the baby in his arms. She had forgotten all about the little girl, the pocket of joy that had been in the Rodney's life for just a few months, if that, a croak of surprise catching her off guard. "Mr. President," she greets, standing upright. She's never referred to him as Rennie, it does feel too awkward, and calling him president has sat well in her soul, though that does surprise her.

"Good evening, Valencia," Rennie says, although, again, he isn't actually the one speaking. Valencia sees him mouth the words, and the baby in his arms doesn't stir despite the noise coming out just a bit lower than normal, closer to the child's ears.

"I- may I help you?" she asks. "It obviously is rather late, and..."

"I'm sorry," Rennie nods his head. "I should've called ahead, but I was already in mid-flight when the thought occurred to stop here. It's about her," and he gestures with his free hand at the baby in his arms, Valencia's gaze going to the child. "And don't worry about your voice, she's asleep."

Valencia's gaze falls on the baby. In all the whirlwind of the new political climate, and the nightmares at night, Valencia forgets about the girl. It had been something - it is not a thing, but a person, she cannot refer to the child in that manner - that Rennie and Pollux constantly reminded the forces of the Phoenix about, that the little girl is to not be harmed under any circumstances, and if any harm were to come to the child, Rennie would execute the traitor himself, in the brutalist way possible he could think of, she agreeing with the sentiment. Valencia gets a good look at her, at her pale skin, crinkled forehead while the girl has her eyes closed, and the pure serenity to it all. She's delightful, but the victor has no idea why he even brought her along. In the Capitol, it had been Hale looking after the child, and if not Hale, Arianne and Elias, her kids, and if not them, the plenty of nurses on call. "She certainly is beautiful, isn't she, Mr. President?"

Rennie smiles, rocking the baby back and forth in his arms. "Valencia, you don't have to always be so polite," He looks up at her, at Valencia, the warm grin still on his face. The first time she had met him, meeting the avox, is with his sister by his side congratulating her on the victory in the Quell, though there's a pained expression behind Lewlyn Davis's voice that Valencia does not pick up on immediately or right away. He had given her a pin, a sigil of District 1's flag, a gorgeous stunning shade of carnation pink and a black rose etched in the corner, to resemble the beauty of significance of One. "Rennie is perfectly fine."

Valencia sucks in her cheeks, a faint blush rising to the forefront, her body heat going up a degree. "It's a habit. Lance and Kevia always wanted me to be respectful. For the sponsors and all..."

Habits are hard to break, especially those.

The redhead rocks the child back and forth some more, the child bundled up in a swath of navy blue cloth, sound asleep without a care in the world, while the sun sinks further beneath the sky. The meteor shower should be happening shortly, Valencia having half the mind to ask Rennie to stay, but even if he now finds the time to detour to District 1, he cannot stay because a Quarter Quell victor asks him to stay. Rennie hums a low noise in his throat, a sweet coo that makes all the hair on her arms stand up, before he glances back over at her. "I trust you received his letter."

"I did," the victoress nods. "Has he gotten in contact with you guys since then?"

He shakes his head in dissent, a cold gust causing Valencia to hug her arms tight. Looking at Rennie, in all of his regality, she is impressed by how down to Earth he feels, how normal he feels despite what he's been through, and despite the machinations that have placed him in the seat of power that he's in, she feels safe around him. If it were anyone holding this baby in their arms, Valencia sees herself opening her mouth to protest, but not with him. He led a nation to freedom, and could've done so with or without her help, so why would she fear him holding onto an infant? "Not yet, no," Rennie's voice coming from the patch is rather soft as he rocks in place, before looking at her, almost inquisitively, she frowning and tilting her head to the side. What is he looking at her for? "You still haven't decided to dye your hair back to its normal color?"

Valencia moves again, bringing her lower lip into her mouth. Even after the end of the rebellion, even with Bonnie dead and getting a funeral where she, Rennie, and Pollux are the only ones to attend, with the scourge of her victory in the Quell snuffed out of the air, she hasn't gone back to her blonde roots. Her blonde hair in the arena only causes her trouble, allowing her to be seen in the middle of the night by high beams, or where blonde hair is present as her queen of the Underworld burns into flames. Changing it with Bonnie and Calhoun alive is impossible, for the threat of punishment rises high as a possibility to happen to her, she keeping her self calm... but even with her gone, the dark locks are there. It is a part of her now, and she'll never change them.

She smiles faintly. "I have thought about it, but I don't want to. Bonnie and Calhoun did it to own me, or so they think," A lump fills in her throat, a sharp bitter taste on her tongue, but she cannot dwell on the past any longer. "However, with my dark hair, I freed Panem from tyrants. I wouldn't change it again," her voice surges with pride, and then, faintly, remembrance. Nostalgic remembrance, even if the memory is not particularly happy, but the woman had never made anything particularly happy truth be told. "Kevia used to be bothered by how much I prattled with it. It really is just hair..." Valencia smirks to herself, incapable of adding that last little barb. "Mr. President."

For a few seconds, there is just the sinking of the sun as the sunset continues, cardinal red getting swapped out for precious and oceanic navy blue, the sun setting in her heart likewise.

Rennie smiles again, looking at the watch on his wrist, a dainty silver object, looking quite expensive. "I would stay, but I do have an appointment to get to."

"An appointment, or dinner and a kiss with Pollux?" the victoress raises an eyebrow, supplying a smirk. Perhaps the worst kept secret in the Panemian court or in Rennie's newfound administration, that he and the Master of Ceremonies have found themselves wandering back together into each other's bedrooms with springs in their steps following the next morning. While she feels no place to commentate on Rennie's relationship with his sister, since she never got to know Lewlyn Davis, nor does she feel it to be her place on those matters, she can see the way Pollux looks at their new leader, and the way Rennie would be a fool to refuse the knock at the door.

The president's lips uptick into a slight smile. "Well, as a matter of fact, yes," he shakes his head again, looking down at the little girl in his arms, Valencia keeping an eye on her smooth face, tiny hands with even tinier fingers gripping onto the edge of the blanket in her slumber. "However, I came by because of her," he clears his throat, pausing for a breath, Valencia quirking an eyebrow in the air. "This is Bonnie's daughter and..." Rennie looks up to the sky, worry and fear flooding into Valencia's veins. What's the matter? Is something the matter? "I don't know how else to quite say this except for the fact that I don't think I am able to take care of her," Rennie shakes his head back and forth. "Bonnie is her mother, but she's gone. I asked Hale but with Arianne and Elias all by herself, I didn't want her to burden the trouble," her heart skips a beat, for she already knows. "I don't feel right raising her, if you were to know all the history and-"

"You want me to raise her? To raise Bonnie's kid?" Valencia finishes for him. She knows, she could see it in his eyes, from the way he constantly looks at her and looks at the child back and forth together in rapid succession. Trying to paint the picture, trying to see what the painting would like with a victor of the Hunger Games, at eighteen no less, taking such a position. She has thought about children, long ago when she believes men to be the emphasis on life, but that is before she meets Persephone, who dances with her in a pool watercolors, idyllic splashes of purple on her forearms. There is the even more foolish notion of living with Persephone and adopting a child together, living by a lake with a log cabin and shooting birds out of the sky, a gruesome picture that all goes up in smoke.

Children had never been on her radar, but it is not something she's against, and if it is Rennie asking her after he's had nowhere else to turn to-

He takes a step back, caught off guard by her forwardness, eyes searching, bright blue diamonds searching for answers he may never mind. She's learned the way of hiding her secrets, so those who go snooping do not ever come back out of the abyss. "I- I do, yes, Valencia,"

Valencia shakes her head back and forth, trying to keep the smile om her face. "I cannot say I necessarily saw that in my deck of cards this morning but..." she sighs heavily, filling her lungs with air. This could be the future she's always wanted, without someone by her side perhaps, but that is not to say she won't ever find someone to live happily ever after with, man or woman. "I didn't know if I wanted kids, even after I became a victor, knowing they could be up for the reaping, and after I won, I definitely didn't want kids," she bites on her lip, while Rennie nods his head in understanding. "It might be the reason I haven't decided to look for anyone else to go after," the victor directs her attention on the child in the president's arms. She's starting to move some, squirming slightly out of her dream. "But for her? For her having the mother she did, and to be in this world?" Decision made, decision immediately noted. "I'll take her, Mr. President."

"You will?" Somehow, though she'll never understand the modernity of science, let alone by Criston's hand, there is surprise etched in Rennie's tone.

"I will. I promise you. My parents have wanted a kid and-"

"Valencia, if you don't-" Rennie tries cutting her off, but she flashes him a glance. There have been mistakes made in her life, a life without distractions to keep her at bay, to keep her tethered to the soaked and wet ground so she doesn't float off into space with nothing holding onto her. So that when Peri cries out in pain from her demise, there is a bundle of joy in the next room to go to, to silence her from her nightmares instead. To do good in this world, the change she's been seeking though she never knew it'd arrive in the hands of an avox.

"I don't mind," A bit of hope peeks through her inflection as she takes a look over at the baby. "May- may I hold her?"

"Of course," Rennie says, and then, as if he is not even moving anything but air, he hands her over into Valencia's grasp, she taking the baby into her arms. Delightful and wonderful, Valencia essentially feeling the warmth of the child rise in her arms, a feeling of joy and happiness blooming like a rose petal in the center of her chest. She never understood her mother, or even Hale, when listening to them talk about children and babies and having kids of your own, finding it to be mother talk, and if she's not a mother, why would she understand even a fraction of it?

She understands now, Valencia feels as if she's dipping into the River of Life, or eaten from the Tree of Knowledge.

"She is the prettiest baby in the world." Valencia looses her breath simply staring at the child.

"She doesn't have a name yet," Rennie says, rocking on his heels. "Calhoun and Bonnie never did get around to naming her."

"You want me to name her?" Valencia looks up at the president in shock. She remembers, being there in the room after all when Bonnie gives birth, on their decision, but she still doesn't believe that it's been three months since then and the girl has no name to her own identity, for she is not just a blob of flesh, but a living creature, a creature Valencia will cherish and can only cherish if she gives her a name.

Rennie nods his head, mouth kept level. "I didn't feel honored to do that either. I figured whoever the caretaker would be could end up making that decision," he sighs deeply, the sunset finally beginning to end as it sinks beneath the sky. "It's a lot of pressure I know, but-"

"It's not, Mr. President," Valencia interrupts him, holding the little girl tight to her body. "She's gorgeous."

"Thank you, Valencia," She has never heard the voice modulator sound so full of life, so full of promise, for Rennie steps close to her, kissing the victor on the forehead. It is a Persephone kiss, gentle and slow, tenderness kept in mind. The president then crouches down to Valencia's arms, to the child she is holding, he looking at Bonnie's daughter, hands falling on the cloth she is wrapped in. He kisses her gently too, on the forehead, red hair bright against the sky blue, a damp spot appearing on the cloth as a lone tear falls from his eyes onto the blanket. "Goodbye, my darling. You- you're in the best person's hands possible," he smiles, righting himself, tugging at the corners of his suit, which have gotten wrinkled from his movement. "Goodnight, Valencia."

She watches him go, wanting to hug him, having a thousand and one questions on the tip of her tongue, but all of it is lost to the thaw of the situation in front of her, for the child placed in her arms. There must've been no one better, when she thinks about it, everyone believing she could've been the new president of Panem, but instead, she defers it to Rennie. He, in turn, defers a child into her arms, but she cannot say she is upset, beyond the opposite. Rennie's dark suit and bright hair vanish into the hovercraft, she turning away from the vehicle as it begins to take off into the sky, blowing dust and debris everywhere when the boosters kick into gear, she shielding the child away, a loud noise filling the vicinity that has gone ever so quiet by the chirping of the crickets and cicadas.

A cooing noise causes her to look down, the little girl waking up at last, just as Valencia cannot see Rennie's hovercraft any longer in the sky, the sleek paint and the chessboard design gone forever. She gasps lightly at the vivid blue of the little girl's eyes, and who surely this stranger is, but that doesn't happen, none of it happens when the little girl looks at Valencia, and she back at the child in her arms. A gift from the heavens, a happiness that Persephone wanted for her. And that she has no name, and that she's all hers.

"Hi, sweetie!" Valencia greets, and then nearly bursts into tears when the little girl smiles back.

She turns around to go back inside, holding the infant in her arms, when she looks up, gasping once more in delight. The sky is lit up, shooting stars of all kinds racing by through the murky blue, the expanse of dark black, twinkling and shining with radiant balls of fire that Valencia watches burn up, and looking down at the girl in her arms, she is watching it too, the same smile on her face growing wider and wider. A beautiful sight to behold, Valencia standing back to drink it all in the center of the Victors Village, and that this moment couldn't be any more perfect.

"You don't have a name?" Valencia asks, looking down at the little girl. A name. A name, a name. What goes into a name? There are thousands of names out there she could choose from, but Valencia knows just the one. Perhaps it wouldn't make sense to some, and maybe not to most. Kevia would be honored, but not her. Persephone doesn't need to live on in anyone else... for the woman this little girl grows up to be would not be standing on pillars of dust and ash, monuments of bone and ash, but a fruitful plain, with the stars and the heavens falling down below to greet them. She hugs the child close to her chest, smiling, crying even, but it is right.

Panem is in good hands, this child is in good hands. The darkness has fallen, the bombs and bullets have detonated in the sky, and a sun rises in the horizon ever still.

"Hello, Bonnie."

* * *

_Coming Soon - Date TBA_

_Part III of Slaughterverse - **Cities of Dust**_

* * *

**I need a moment to collect my thoughts. Um, through the puddle of tears and joy I am experiencing, I must first say thank you. This journey so far into Slaughterverse has become something I never expected nor anticipated and it has been the largest blast in my life. Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is it. We have reached the end of Bombs and Bullets, the second of three parts in Slaughterverse, a Hunger Games SYOT that detonated off the rails into something much more, with end of Chapter #38: Monuments of Bone and Ash. Eleven months after Slaughter was finished I have this monstrosity of a story, shorter chapter wise but larger word count wise, a behemoth I am very proud to have in my hand.**

**This day is extra special to me, that I've chosen to update the finale here of something that has taken a year and a half, almost a year and three quarters of my life, is that on July 15th, 2013 I started a Fanfiction account to post a Hunger Games fanfic I wrote... and here I am, seven years later, 2.864 million words later, still doing what I love, and it's all because of you guys. I swore I wouldn't cry, but here we are, and I am crying.**

**385k later, thirty-eight chapters later. Thirty-four characters, two storylines merged into one yet still separate, with an idea I cannot believe I even came up with, and like I promised at the end of Slaughter, something that would be more than tributes fighting in an arena, even if no one believed me then. Ciphra has reconnected, Hale has crossed a barrier, Amaris and Ponty have found a new bridge in their relationship, and Valencia has just been given a gift... but all of this is just a mere stepping stone, as yes, read correctly, I am in planning a new story for Slaughterverse, after some heavy thinking. While it will not deal with the Games in the traditional sense, it'll have these returning ten survivors of Bullets, plus new OC's, but five of the eight I plan to introduce I am letting submitters design. It is called Cities of Dust, and it springs from Lance's journey, but if I say more, I'll give it all away.**

**Now, I like to always do this for stories of this magnitude, that if you are to review. If you've made it to this point, I sincerely hope you do, otherwise you wouldn't put up with me and my incompetence for this long, correct? I like to ask questions and garner your responses. I'd greatly appreciate it, as it helps me in case I need to go back and edit, fix things, stuff like that.**

**1) Favorite moment of the tribute storyline on their side of the Phoenix Rebellion (can include Pre-Games and reapings and all of that too)? Least favorite moment?**

**2) Favorite and least favorite moments of the Capitol OC storyline centered around the Phoenix Rebellion?**

**3) Top three and bottom three favorite tributes? (I have a damn good feeling who's hitting the bottom, haha)**

**4) Favorite and least favorite Capitol character?**

**5) Favorite chapter title, should you have one?**

**6) Shall I see you submit an OC for _Cities of Dust _when the time comes around?**

**7) Anything else you'd like to add?**

**I'd greatly appreciate it if you all do this, should you feel the want to. I do have _Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death, _my closed SYOT of the 1st Games to focus on now, and I cannot wait for that story, as it'll be a doozy too. Cities of Dust would not start until Liberty is definitely finished, however, for this plot line I want to do needs to marinate. If you've made it this far, I want to say thank you to everyone here on FFN and on Discord who has believed in me to get this done, to get this out there, for reviewing and favoring and following and simply being a fan, as I couldn't have done it without your support. I also want to take this time to thank one particular person, perhaps the person I feel closest to in the entire world, and that is my best friend thorne98. He is an absolutely incredible writer, the sweetest guy possible, and he's helped me out of many dark corners, a gigantic motivator in getting me to finish this story. Please go read his absolutely underrated and very well deserved SYOT _Death is the Rule, _for it is one of the best I've ever read on this site, bar none. Thorne, if you're reading this, I fucking love you, dude. **

**Thank you so much for sticking round for the ride, and I'll see you all in Liberty. Your support means the world to me. Have a great day! Love you all! Bye!**

**~ Paradigm**


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